At this week’s Macaulay Institute seminar, ‘Risk, precaution and participation – beyond the barricades!’, Dr Andy Stirling, Senior Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex will take a look at whether decisions on risk should be based on ’sound science’, the ‘precautionary principle’ or public participation – or whether we can have the best of all worlds.

Commenting on the topic of the seminar, Dr Stirling said: “Current policy making on environment and risk is going through ‘interesting times’. The mainstream idea that the solution lies simply in ’sound science’ is suffering from a crisis of confidence. But resulting moves towards more ‘precautionary’ approaches are highly controversial in other quarters.”

Anyone interested in attending this Wednesday’s (23 February) Macaulay seminar at 2pm should contact Jane Lund on tel: 01224 498200, email:j.lund@macaulay.ac.uk.

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe; from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk .

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Dr Andrew Stirling

Dr Andrew Stirling works at the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex . He has a background in the natural sciences, a Masters in archaeology and anthropology and a doctorate in science and technology policy. Formerly a Director of Greenpeace International, he has worked with a variety of academic, government, industry and public interest organisations in fields including nuclear waste, energy policy, chemicals strategies, genetically modified crops and the public health sector.

His research focuses on the integration of specialist, stakeholder and citizen perspectives in science and technology policy, the analysis of technological resilience and diversity and the implementation of the precautionary principle. In each area he has been keen to explore the practical policy implications of his work and has served to this end on a number of European and UK Government science advisory committees.

The precautionary principle

The precautionary principle, a phrase coined circa 1988, is the ethical principle that if the consequences of an action, especially the use of technology, are unknown but are judged by some scientists to have a high risk of being negative from an ethical point of view, then it is better not to carry out the action rather than risk the uncertain, but possibly very negative, consequences.