Interdisciplinary Capacity and Research
The public policy challenges at the interface of science and society are very diverse and often require an interdisciplinary perspective as can be seen in our academic papers and reports for clients.
In addition to academic and contract work, the ISSP selects research projects of broad community interest. In 2013, these included an initiative to preserving important (but hard to find) documents from the Science Council of Canada and other key institutions (Science Council Archive), and a major initiative to support innovation policy making in Canada (Innovation Decalogue).
The ISSP maintains strong ties among its research network of academics, independent researchers, practitioners and students. It is also attracting a Fulbright Research Chair in 2014 and is hiring a new Canada Research Chair in the history of innovation policy in Canada.
Finally, we engage in partnerships. We organized a symposium in collaboration with Situating Scence and participated in an application for a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant. Entitled Sciences, Technologies, and Publics, the project (funded at the letter-of-intent level) aims to affect how policy makers, the media and politicians think about the roles of science and technology in society, as well as filling gaps in current scholarship.