innovation: managing risk, not avoiding it
TRANSCRIPT
Innovation: managing risk, not avoiding it
• Innovation is essential, but always carries risk
• Framing risk rigorously makes decisions more robust
• Context matters: science is not the only lens
• Shaping regulation and decision-making: it can be done!
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Innovation – managing the risks
• Increases in life expectancy (and reductions in infant mortality)
• Global gdp increases
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Innovation is essential to growth and wellbeing
• Cars and trains
• Contraception
Combined oral contraceptive pill - first used in USA in 1960. Currently used by over 100 million women worldwide
Has been called “greatest scientific invention,” of 20th century by some commentators
Impacts for women include: choice as to whether to have children, further education and a career
Societies respond by a mix of changing behaviours, regulation and legislation
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Innovation has always been contested
• Population growth (and restructuring)
• Climate risks
• Socio-economic trends
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21st Century context is different
• Big data
• Satellites
• Robotics and autonomous systems
• Synthetic biology
• Regenerative medicine
• Agri-science
• Advanced materials
• Energy storage
• Quantum
• Internet of things
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Future growth, security and wellbeing depends on effective exploitation of emerging
technologies
• Innovation is essential, but always carries risk
• Framing risk rigorously makes decisions more robust
• Context matters: science is not the only lens
• Shaping regulation and decision-making: it can be done!
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Framing risk
Review the evidence…….
…and acknowledge that all evidence is
•Contingent
•Uncertain
Remember that the numbers you choose are not neutral
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Apply the “science” of risk and risk communication
We place trust for specific purposes.
We expected the trustworthy institution or individual to
Critical Trust is especially important if cause and effect are difficult for the layperson to determine.
•Invisible, pervasive
•Long term
•Highly technical
• Take account of our interests
• Be competent
• Not be self-serving
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Placing trust
The system
• Systematic and cross-Departmental
• Rapid response
• Independent verification
• Credibility
Recent emergencies
• Ebola
• Flooding
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UK has a systematic approach to managing top national risks
• Innovation is essential, but always carries risk
• Framing risk rigorously makes decisions more robust
• Context matters: science is not the only lens
• Shaping regulation and decision-making: it can be done!
Context matters
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If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen
•Hazards: bleach
•Exposure: bleach in the stew
•Risk = hazard x exposure: poisoning
•Vulnerability: children have greater sensitivity and greater likelihood of exposure.
•Uncertainty = degree of confidence in hazard, exposure and vulnerability
Terminology: Risk is not the same as hazard
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Individual responses to risk are shaped by:
•“Availability” draws on the analytical and emotional systems in the brain
•Often based on rules of thumb, reinforced by personal experience and personal networks
•With a tendency to:
– Fear a loss more than a foregone gain
– Overestimate frequency of events that can easily be recalled
We know a lot about how individuals assess cost and benefit
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Anticipating types of innovation
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Five Broad Categories Examples Responses
1. Who pays? Some medical drugs NICE
2. My pain, your gain Nuclear waste Public engagementDecisions at multiple levels
3. Science meets values Early GM, geo-engineering
Strengthen science base.Public engagement. Don’t confuse science with values.
4. Unanticipated consequences
Internet Monitor, debate, trial and learn
5. New challenges Some nanotechnologies
Monitor, adapt, regulate
Science is not the only lens
Can view “fracking” in terms of:-
•Suite of technical risks e.g. seismological or well engineering (“hydraulic fracturing”)
• Impact on local amenity (“not in my backyard”)
• Impact on global energy and carbon policy (“growth” and “greenhouses gases”)
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Credit: greensefa/CC BY 2.0
Credit: Al Granberg
Cultural factors - precautionary by default?
Leading to large variations in approaches to innovation and risk and on different issues in different countries
National identity and values
•Stem cells•Nuclear power•GM•Handguns
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GM crops: practical working guidelines
Be specific•What gene?•In what organism?•For what purpose?
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Have a broad view•Consider inaction as well as action•Look at multiple pathways •Science is essential, but not the only lens
• Innovation is essential, but always carries risk
• Framing risk rigorously makes decisions more robust
• Context matters: science is not the only lens
• Shaping regulation and decision-making: it can be done!
Shaping regulation
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Challenges
•Systemic pressures
– Economic regulators (and price)
•Asymmetric incentives
– Neonicotinoids (unintended consequences)
•Lack of proportion
– Pig inspection (what you can’t see for looking)
Challenges for regulation
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More challenges and opportunities in the future
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Challenges
•Future regulation will need to become far more agile and responsive.
•Technological change and the guardianship and use of information present key challenges
•The governance placed on regulators themselves will need to address asymmetric incentives to action and encourage more collaborative, transparent approaches.
HFEA and mitochondria replacement therapy
HFEA: Extended consultation
Multiple strategies
Outcome: Shift in public and expert opinion
Advised Secretary of State: clear public support for clinical use of mitochondria replacement treatment.
It can be done!
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UK has strong institutions to supply evidence and advise on risk
•Government “science advisory ecosystems”
•NICE
•What Works Centres
•National Academies
•Scientific Advisory Group in Emergencies
•Academic centres of excellence and leading practitioners
Well informed debate requires sustained capability
Strong institutions able to carry out meta-analysis and look across disciplines, working over months and years
BUT the risk community is small and fragmented.
Ad hoc studies as required
Trusted relationships, very rapid responses
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Call to action
Key areas where we can build on existing approaches:-
• Investment: Aligning national priorities for investment on resilience, infrastructure and innovation with an evidence and risk-based approach;
• UK coordination: Ensuring a more coherent and structured approach to assessing impact of risk in policy, regulation and crisis management;
• Regulators: Putting in place the right governance structures and incentives in relation to our regulators and regulated industries;
• Science-based EU: Rooting the approach to policy and decision-making in EU in robust scientific evidence.
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@uksciencechief
www.gov.uk/go-science