Legislators routinely face time and budgetary constraints and an ever-changing landscape of policy issues. Throw in highly technical topics and challenges in accessing research, and many turn to scientific resources to assist with decision-making.
“The public assumes we have specialists on every topic, but we don’t have scientific or technical experts on these complex issues,” West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw told a 2024 NCSL Base Camp session.
The good news? There are options.
“Fellows provide a product on which we can rely (and) easily digest in a fashion that is accessible to our members.”
—Speaker Roger Hanshaw, West Virginia
Hanshaw finds support from the West Virginia Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, as doctoral-level researchers, scientists and engineers bring technical knowledge and analytical skills to policymakers. Fellows provide nonpartisan policy research to legislators and staff in the form of Science and Technology Notes. “Fellows evaluate policy options and barriers to entry, then leave the politics to us,” Hanshaw says.
While developing policymaking skills, fellows “provide support that our legislature does not have in full-time staff or in the legislative research office, which is by design,” Hanshaw says. “Our legislative staff does not have the time or capacity to become experts on all the various topics.”
Nonpartisan science policy fellowships such as West Virginia’s help build relationships between scientists and policymakers, allow scientists to engage in the policy process and provide legislators quick and direct access to research. Of the 11 programs scattered across the nation, six place fellows in the legislature full time.
In the Constitution State, legislators include the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, or CASE, in their policymaking toolbox.
Chartered by the General Assembly in 1976, CASE offers science and technology expertise through research studies, technical and peer reviews, briefings and testimony as requested by policymakers and staff.
Like academies in other states, CASE was modeled after the National Academy of Sciences. The academy, in which membership is honorific, is composed of scientists and engineers representing a broad array of issue areas. CASE is recognized as an unbiased, nonpartisan and evidence-based source of information.
“Our purpose is to provide information so that science and technology is considered as legislators move forward with the policymaking process.”
—Terri Clark, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
The Center for Scientific Evidence in Public Issues, an initiative of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, engages decision-makers at all levels of government and in all 50 states and the territories. Known as the EPI Center, the initiative “provides clear, actionable and useful scientific evidence to policymakers,” Kate Stoll, the center’s project director, says.
The EPI Center builds trust between scientists and policymakers via mediated engagement, paving the way for decision-makers to access and apply research. “We find the experts so you don’t have to,” Stoll says. “Policymakers must juggle a thousand issues at one time. Our mission is to make incorporating scientific evidence as easy as possible for decision-makers.”
The EPI Center carries out its mission through events, publications and in-person state action planning. Since 2019, it has reached over 6,000 decision-makers, covering a multitude of topics, from artificial intelligence to methane emissions.
As a nonpartisan entity, the EPI Center does not advocate for specific policy outcomes. While the organization sees value in bringing science to policymaking, it understands that scientific evidence is just one of many variables to consider in that process.
Programs such as science policy fellowships, CASE and the EPI Center offer tools to help states make sense of and address technical policy issues by putting scientific resources within arm’s reach.
Maddy Tyner is a policy associate in NCSL’s Center for Results Driven Governing.