…Truth [is] being involved in an eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline…truth is not in the conclusions so much as in the process of conversation itself…if you want to be in truth you must be in conversation. Parker Palmer

I use the example of the 2000 US Presidential election to show that political controversies with technical underpinnings are not resolved by technical means. Then, drawing from examples such as climate change, genetically modified foods, and nuclear waste disposal, I explore the idea that scientific inquiry is inherently and unavoidably subject to becoming politicized in environmental controversies. I discuss three reasons for this. First, science supplies contesting parties with their own bodies of relevant, legitimated facts about nature, chosen in part because they help make sense of, and are made sensible by, particular interests and normative frameworks. Second, competing disciplinary approaches to understanding the scientific bases of an environmental controversy may be causally tied to competing value-based political or ethical positions. The necessity of looking at nature through a variety of disciplinary lenses brings with it a variety of normative lenses, as well. Third, it follows from the foregoing that scientific uncertainty, which so often occupies a central place in environmental controversies, can be understood not as a lack of scientific understanding but as the lack of coherence among competing scientific understandings, amplified by the various political, cultural, and institutional contexts within which science is carried out. In light of these observations, I briefly explore the problem of why some types of political controversies become “scientized ” and others do not, and conclude that the value bases of disputes underlying environmental controversies must be fully articulated and adjudicated through political means before science can play an effective role in resolving environmental problems.

While surprisingly little has been written about context at a meaningful level, context is central to most theoretical approaches to information seeking. In this essay I explore in more detail three senses of context. First, I look at context as equivalent to the situation in which a process is immersed. Second, I discuss contingency approaches that detail active ingredients of the situation that have specific, predictable effects. Third, I examine major frameworks for meaning systems. Then, I discuss how a deeper appreciation of context can enhance our understanding of the process of information seeking by examining two vastly different contexts in which it occurs: organizational and cancer-related, an exemplar of everyday life information seeking. This essay concludes with a discussion of the value that can be added to information seeking research and theory as a result of a deeper appreciation of context, particularly in terms of our current multi-contextual environment and individuals taking an active role in contextualizing.

Design representations in user-centered design serve intentions for directing design process and communication functions for enlisting interdisciplinary participation. To disentangle these two factors, a vocabulary for identifying communication functions in design is proposed. This vocabulary, drawn from a selective review of empirical studies of design activity in architecture and engineering, is then applied to three design cases from user-centered design. This analysis shows how representational use is subject to adaptive pressure from the communication demands in interdisciplinary teams. The consequences of this pressure for understanding the nature of design are discussed. ACM Classification: K.6.1 [Management of Computing

Much of the British and European literature on the role of interest groups in the policy process focuses on their participation in policy networks of various types. Possibly reflecting the original development of the policy community and policy network ‘models ’ in the late 1970s, these approaches tend to emphasize stability and continuity – of both networks and policies. However, the 1980s and 1990s have witnessed much policy change and instability in most Western European states. In particular, some governments have adopted a more impositional policy style, and interest groups have learned to exploit the opportunities presented by a policy process which is increasingly characterized by multiple opportunity structures. This is especially the case following Europeanization of many policy sectors within the fifteen EU member states. The article focuses on the possible causes of policy change, including the importance of state power; changes in the behaviour of interest groups as they adjust to and exploit the opportunities presented by multi-arena policy-making; the impact of new policy fashions, reflecting knowledge and ideas which can act as a virus-like threat to existing policy communities. 1. Policy Communities and Policy Networks Concepts and models in political science probably reflect the politics of the period in which they were first formulated. This is both unsurprising and desirable, as their utility is to help understand, explain, and even predict events in the real world. An ambition to develop concepts more applicable to the realities of post-war British politics was the foundation of the British origins of what is now termed the network approach. 1

Abstract: Recent changes in the field of evaluation refer to new demands by politics, economies and society to extend the subject of evaluation processes to cross-sectoral research promotion programs and research institutions, and new developments within the research of evaluation itself. The paper presents an overview of these trends and consequences for the function and methods of evaluation of research and innovation policies against the background of recent German experiences. Keywords: Self-referential evaluation; German research system; evaluation of innovation programs; summative and formative evaluation. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kuhlmann, S. (2003) ‘Evaluation of research and innovation policies: a discussion of trends with

The familiar market failure model remains quite useful for issues of price efficiency and traditional utilitarianism, but has many shortcomings as an aid to understanding the public value aspects of public policy and management. In developing a public value failure model, I present diagnostic criteria for values problems not easily addressed by market failure models. Public value failure occurs when: (1) mechanisms for values articulation and aggregation have broken down; (2) “imperfect monopolies ” occur; (3) benefit hoarding occurs (i.e. public domain benefits and public goods have been captured by groups, limiting distribution to the population); (4) there is a scarcity of providers of public value; (5) a short time horizon threatens public value; (6) there is a focus on substitutability of assets that threatens conservation of public resources; (7) social and market transactions threaten fundamental human subsistence. After providing examples of public failure diagnostics, including an extended example concerning the market for human organs, I introduce a “public failure grid ” to help interpret policy issues according to public failure criteria. The basic point of the grid is a simple one: market failure-success and public failure-success are independent dimensions and, thus, market failure criteria are rarely sufficient for public policy decision-making. Considering the joint criteria holds promise of improved policy outcomes by addressing both economic efficiency and public value. 1 Public Value Failure: “When Efficient Markets May Not Do ” 1 “If markets be ends as well as means, their nonefficiency is hardly sufficient ground for rejection. On the other hand, efficient markets may not do, efficiency of the ‘invisible hand ’ does not preclude preference for other efficient modes of organization, if there be any. ” (Bator, 1958: 378-79)

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In the public policy-making arena, stakeholders and decision-makers are engaged in a never-ending process of trying to influence each other’s thinking and behavior.

this document 1 2 The Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN): Establishing an Ecological Science Cooperative in the Mixedwood Plains Ecozone 2 3 Cumulative effects monitoring program for the Niagara Escarpment 5 4 Lake Superior Binational Program 9 5 Monitoring ecosystem integrity in Fundy National Park 13 6 Canadian Council of Forest Ministers (CCFM) indicator framework for the National Forest Strategy 18 7 Agroecosystem Health Project at the University of Guelph 23 8 Discussion 26 9 References 32 The preparation of this review document was partially supported by a Research Assistantship under the supervision of Prof. George Francis, Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo