Rising Wisely

Yesterday, I was reading a bit about the field of post-normal science and came across the concept of science shops. This was something I had never encountered before since I am from the United States.  In the U.S. we have something called Science Salons–where scientists give talks and answer questions in a public setting.  The science shop idea, however, made immediate sense in a much more practical way, and I knew exactly what they were.  The Science Shop Network describes them this way:

“Science Shops are not “shops” in the traditional sense of the word. They are small entities that carry out scientific research in a wide range of disciplines – usually free of charge and – on behalf of citizens and local civil society. The fact that Science shops respond to civil society’s needs for expertise and knowledge is a key element that distinguish them from other knowledge transfer mechanisms. Science Shops are often, but not always, linked to universities, where students conduct the research as part of their curriculum.”

The journal Nature published an article in 2001 that described how the shops were making a comeback after they were pioneered by the Dutch in the (now) European Union and were spreading to other developing regions including South Africa.

Science shops (or Vignyana Angadi in Kannada) provide an interface between science and society in a way that large-infrastructure science isn’t necessarily equipped to handle.  Reading these articles makes me wonder about the potential value of these shops in India, what they would looks like, and how they might operate.

Given the gaps recently highlighted between the success of the large-scale science projects and the work that need to be done to both leverage the existing scientific literacy and improve upon it for other members of India’s population, perhaps a model like this could serve as a waypoint for addressing “street-level” concerns. In many cases scientific methodologies already enable the tools to solve or inform many common problems. What we lack is the political and social agency to implement them on a large scale.

What do you think a Science Angadi should look like?