This project funded by the Science, Technology & Society program supports a symposium that investigates communication among stakeholders, scientists, and publics into policy decisions in post-Katrina New Orleans. The symposium takes place in mid-November 2010, which coincides closely with the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The two objectives for the symposium are: 1) To examine and improve the interaction among scientists, engineers, other academic scholars, policy makers, and the public in the New Orleans region, to improve mechanisms for public input into research and policy decisions, and to scrutinize the role scientists and scholars play in community affairs; 2) To bring together scholars from diverse fields who do not normally interact, to stimulate innovative, interdisciplinary research addressing ecological and social dynamics in the New Orleans region, research that can satisfy the needs of citizens and policy makers and improve regional resilience.
Intellectual merits: The symposium represents an effort to scrutinize the societal, civic role of scientists, engineers, and other academic scholars. This is an intellectual exercise that informs the way scientific research is carried out, and the way scientists and scholars go about their work. A key aim of the symposium is to bring together groups of researchers and stakeholders, academic and non-academic, who rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to interact and collaborate. The resulting discussions, coalitions, collaborative teams, and interdisciplinary research programs catalyze innovative, collaborative academic research.
Broader impacts: A major goal of the symposium is to involve public citizens and members of underrepresented groups, to examine and enhance the venues for public input into science policy in the New Orleans region (and beyond) and to improve social and individual well-being in an area facing grave challenges in terms of environmental and social vulnerability. The nature of the hosting institution, Dillard University, a Historically Black College with longstanding close ties to the African American community in New Orleans, enhances the participation in the symposium of scholars from underrepresented groups, as well as community members and leaders who are often disenfranchised from the workings of academics and public policy. The inclusion of local citizens and students from underrepresented groups bring about a new paradigm in inclusive research and policy-making, a crucial goal when socioeconomically challenged communities worldwide are often the ones most impacted by global change. The discussion and interaction planned for this symposium thus has the potential to change the way academic inquiry and public policy-making are carried out.
