On May 3rd, 2010, the foundation has the honour of hosting Professor Wiebe E. Bijker in its Milan seat, via Michele Barozzi 4, at 15.30.

Prof Bijker is currently Professor of Technology and Society at The University of Maastricht where his research focuses on the relationship between technology, society and science.
Prof Bijker’s work has much in common with the issues addressed by the Bassetti Foundation. For some time political and normative issues have been central to his work and more recently he has been working on the issue of vulnerabilities of technological cultures.

He will be in Milan to open the course in Policy Research launched by IRER (programme).
At the Bassetti Foundation, Wiebe Bijker will discuss his book The Paradox of Scientific Authority, The Role of Scientific Advice in Democracies, co-authored in 2009 with Roland Bal and Ruud Hendriks, published by the MIT press as part of the Inside Technology Series.

This work offers a descriptive study of the of the inner workings of scientific advice by the Health Council of the Netherlands, in which the authors address the general issue of the role of scientific advice in democracy, and risk governance in technological cultures.

As Alessandro Colombo has pointed out in his recent review in Evidence & Policy (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/ep), the book addresses a twofold “paradox”. Firstly a general paradox of scientific authority: how can scientific advice maintain authority in technological cultures, where political culture has eroded the stature of classic institutions and when science and technology studies have demonstrated the constructed nature of scientific knowledge?
Secondly, and more specifically, how can the success of scientific advisory bodies such as the Health Council of the Netherlands be explained? How do these institutions acquire and maintain such a degree of authority while scientific authority is generally being challenged in modern societies?
The authors raise several interesting points regarding the independence for certain governing bodies and issues of new forms of participative democracy.

The seminar is open to the public, but please confirm your participation to fond.gbassetti@mclink.it. The seminar will start at 3.30 pm sharp and it will be in English.