Climate change, environmental degradation, misinformation, irresponsible use of AI, and a potential pandemic: the challenges of the future require scientifically informed policies and equipped citizens. But how do we align science and policy? How do we use the results of scientific developments responsibly in clinical practice? How do we communicate the scientific method, including its shortcomings? And how do we involve the public in living guidelines for responsible use of new developments, such as generative AI?

Shaping Interfaces Between Science and the Public brings together UvA methodologists and philosophers of science and technology from fields as diverse as psychiatry and mental health, law and the digital humanities. The researchers involved are renowned experts with extensive experience in policy-advice making and public engagement.

Methodological window

With the creation of a Public Methodology Centre, the RPA will open a methodological window to the world, making clearer how different fields of science work, how knowledge is created, and with what uncertainties it is surrounded. The Public Methodology Centre brings together methodologists from different fields.

In collaboration with citizen science, Amsterdam UMC, Academische Werkplaats Shift Left (Arkin) and numerous practices and professions, the Public Methodology Centre will develop interfaces in the broad sense. Interfaces can be apps to monitor mental well-being, climate models that communicate risk, or dialogues on AI and quantum.

With the establishment of the Public Methodology Centre, the RPA will thus develop a more sophisticated yet radical approach to strengthen the place of science in society and combine scientific citizenship with advances in science.