Symposium on Science, Technology and Public Policy (SiP #6)
On Tuesday, 17th September 2019, 17:15 - 18:45, the 6th SiP Talk was held in the Main Building of ETH Zürich (HG G 60). Guest speakers of world leading technical universities talked about key societal challenges whose solutions are likely to emerge at the intersection of science, technology, and public policy, discussing how to institutionalize policy-focused, interdisciplinary research, as well as teaching in this field.
Science and engineering play an increasingly important role in national and international public policy-making, both in helping decision-makers identify and understand societal challenges, and in assessing potential solutions and evaluating how implemented policies perform. Mitigating and adapting to climate change, making mobility and the energy system more sustainable, improving the quality of life in rapidly expanding cities worldwide and using the opportunities and coping with the challenges of digital society are among the many societal issues where solutions are likely to emerge at the interface of science, technology, and public policy.
Yet, leading technical universities, which are expected to educate the future societal problem solvers and contribute to problem solving through their research, are grappling with the common criticism that “the world has problems while universities have disciplines”. This symposium highlighted the efforts by some of the best technical universities of the world to institutionalize policy-focused, interdisciplinary research and teaching.
Find out more about the 6th Sip Talk on the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences webpage.