EXPeditions - The living library of knowlegde20 Juni 2025

Mark Burgman - Bridging science and policy

Mark Burgman, Director of the Centre for Environmental Policy, discusses the work dynamic between scientists and policymakers.

About Mark Burgman "I'm the Director of the Centre for Environmental Policy, and Chair in Risk Analysis and Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.

My work deals with the techniques for conservation biology and, more generally, with the tools for risk analysis that contribute to expert judgement, science and public policy."

Key Points

• A great deal of the problem is that us scientists don’t listen enough. We are too used to dispensing knowledge. • Policymakers work in a complex environment, and scientists need to adapt to them, not the other way around. • There’s been a growth in citizen science and their contributions of hard data.

I know that governments, internationally, aspire to evidence-based policymaking, and I also know that scientists, internationally, aspire to having their work used by governments to do good things and serve the public good. In my experience, public civil servants are motivated by a desire to improve net social benefit. It’s a wonderful motivation, and scientists by and large would love their work to have an impact, even those who are doing relatively theoretical work.

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