1. Dr. Jacqueline Cramer, Minister of Spatial Planning and the Environment, the Netherlands
Speech given at the RMNO conference to mark the departure of Roel in ’t Veld
Leiden, 25 August 2009

Ladies and gentlemen, Roel,

The organisers of this conference have given me the opportunity to address a few words to you today. According to the programme, today is reserved for scientific discussions. Tomorrow and Thursday the focus will be more on science and policy. So I am here in my capacity as a scholar, albeit one from the political arena. The list of speakers is impressive, and I consider it a real privilege to be sharing the platform with them.

Since it was set up the Advisory Council for Research on Spatial Planning, Nature and the Environment (the RMNO) has seen some major changes. The RMNO grew out of the National Steering Committee for Environmental Research (or LASOM). Its first task was taking stock of our knowledge of nature and the environment. As I can well remember, this produced some weighty volumes. They were very well indexed, but the whole set-up was too limited. We needed to make the switch from knowledge supply to specific demand for knowledge.

With this in mind, at the end of the 1980s the RMNO embraced a more strategic approach, focusing on knowledge demand. By the 1990s (when I myself was deputy chair) the RMNO had begun issuing multiannual perspectives, which centred on a direct link between supply and demand. When Roel took over, the organisation continued to build on this, focusing more on socio-institutional processes of change, a vital part of coming up with sustainable solutions. Together with these substantive changes came an increased focus on the role of process in acquiring knowledge and taking decisions.

In the academic world you are judged by your peers on the number of publications you have to your name. Scientists – and social scientists in particular – are always hungry for debate. And dissent is vital to moving debate forward. After all, scholarly debate, even when it ultimately results in converging opinions, is all about what we don’t yet know; what we don’t yet understand, what we still don’t entirely agree on. In a a scholarly debate, differences of opinion are magnified.

These kind of uncertainties are not always very convenient when it comes to politics and policy. Political decisions are always a matter of compromise. And that requires a certain degree of consensus. You have to identify common ground if you want to move forward. This requires a very different approach than in scholarly debates.

In addition, people opposing political decisions look for arguments they can use to stop these decisions in their tracks or, at least, to modify them. And science can provide them with these arguments. So policymakers can sometimes feel that scholarly debate is a spanner in the works.

But at the same time, policy needs research. Researchers, not policymakers, give us new insights into how physical and social systems work. The steady advance of knowledge sets the political agenda. At least, that is how it’s supposed to work.

This conference, ‘Towards knowledge democracy’, looks at the tensions between media, politics, science and society from a number of different angles. I mention society last as the first three are, of course, all part of it. I have just touched on the tensions between policy and scholarship.

Roel spoke about society and politics in an interview with the NRC Handelsblad in 2007: ‘It is time for new forms of democracy. Our institutional constructs date from the nineteenth century, when the focus was on majority rule and the idea of representation ... But people are much better educated now … They no longer interpret the world on the basis of a single normative principle ... So they are looking more for representation at single-issue level.’

He went on to say – and now I’m paraphrasing: ‘You have to ask yourself whether this kind of vertically organised state still makes sense in a world of globalisation and network societies.’

This is not just a thought-provoking proposition; I think it is a topical issue that merits public discussion. The days when knowledge and scholarship were the domain of a social elite are long gone. People’s level of education has risen enormously, and a large proportion of them are capable of forming their own opinion on all sorts of issues.

And they do not only form opinions; they express them. The internet has given everyone a platform, and a potential audience of millions. Blog postings spread like wildfire through social networking sites like Hyves and Facebook. Virals are doing the same on sites like YouTube and Vimeo, attracting millions of viewers. By viewers, for viewers. And everyone can say, or sing, what they want. As Roel pointed out two years ago, most discussions now take place at single-issue level.

Through new media, people who have a common cause, even briefly, can mobilise incredibly quickly and put real pressure on government. Do not underestimate this. Here is a topical example.

Tuesday 7 July 2009:
Ten Amsterdammers decide they are sick of the petty rules that are robbing their city of its free spirit. The final straw is when they are no longer allowed to drink standing outside cafés in the city centre. A day later they form an action group, ‘Ai Amsterdam’, a parody of the city’s marketing slogan. In the morning they set up a blog, a Hyves page and a Facebook page, calling on people to commit civil disobedience and put a stop to ‘administrative madness’. Other blogs pledge their support and local media report on the campaign.

Thursday 9 July:
10,000 have signed Ai Amsterdam’s online manifesto. 8,000 of them descend on Noordermarkt square that evening to stage a playful protest, creating one enormous pavement café full of people standing drinking beer. A week later the group submit its demands to the municipality.

Wednesday 29 July:
The municipality has still not responded. Ai Amsterdam releases a statement: ‘A petition with almost 19,000 signatures apparently isn’t enough to get a response from the people in power. This is shameful!’

Wednesday 5 August, 10am:
Ai Amsterdam goes to tea with the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, taking with them a petition that has now been signed by more than 20,000 people.

Wednesday 5 August, later in the day:
The mayor and alderwoman Els Iping, responsible for pavement café policy, decide that the rule will fall under gedoogbeleid. This means it is still officially in force, but from now on the police will turn a blind eye and not bring charges.

The nineteenth century was indeed a long time ago, Roel.

Besides better education, people have easier, better access to all kinds of information. This has accelerated debate and widened the circle of those involved. The flipside is of course that debates are sometimes conducted with less care.

Today we take a stance on issues much more quickly and explicitly than before. And our stance can change quickly, for example in response to major developments or changes in the economic situation. One need only think of how our take on the workings of the financial sector has changed over the last two years. It’s not always easy to formulate policy in this kind of environment. Especially since the political cycle is only four years long.

And it’s not just the social context within which policy is made that has changed. Society’s problems have also become more complicated. In terms of the environment, we need to find answers to a range of global threats, such as loss of biodiversity and changes in the global climate system. These complex global issues require global solutions.

In the global arena, the interests at stake are much greater. And so are the restrictions that need to be taken into account. Global policy always requires compromise and enormous patience. This means it is open to criticism for being too little, too late, ineffective and inefficient.

Scholars are quick to make that criticism; and it is right that they do so. External critical reflection is the only way to give policy its cutting edge. But that is not to say that ministries are always happy to receive it. ‘There’s no satisfying some people,’ they often sigh.

Knowledge and policy are inextricably bound to each other. That’s not to say that their interaction is always smooth. On the contrary. I have experienced on both sides of the table how difficult it is to build and maintain a bridge between them.

The RMNO plays an important role as intermediary between knowledge and policy in the realm of our physical environment. The RMNO has been able to offer influential advice in a number of important areas. Its advice has affected the course of policymaking in areas such as sustainable development, sustainable tourism, nature and health, the governance of Schiphol, and social cost-benefit analyses.

I would like to conclude by offering my sincere congratulations to the RMNO and those whose hard work over the past months has made this conference possible. I do know I’m not really supposed to say this, Roel, but congratulations are due to you, too. After all, this conference is your crowning achievement.

Thank you.

2. Drs. Koos van der Steenhoven, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Netherlands
Speech given as chair of the second conference day
Leiden, 26 August 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the second day of our conference “towards knowledge democracy”. I don’t know about you, but listening to Roel made me aware of the enormity of the task before us which is to stimulate the true democratisation of knowledge within the complex, basically un-known and untamed society of which we are part.

Knowledge is immeasurable and cannot  be encompassed by an institution or process . Knowledge “happens” and if you don’t happen to be in the right place the right time, it very often escapes us.

“Knowledge happens” – it originates, is generated, picks up unexpected characteristics and ends up  in the most unlikely of places . Yet we must work with knowledge. We have no choice but to  apply it. How do we know what knowledge to use? And how do we know that we  are applying  it  correctly? So, Working with knowledge – is the first topic I  would like to deal with today.
 
Regarding my second point, well as you know, I am employed by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to manage the smooth running of  the ministry  and guard its financial and governance processes. This not only involves working with knowledge, but also organising, steering and evaluating processes that generate and disseminate knowledge – through education, research and by other means. As such, I am  highly aware of  the value of knowledge.  So the second topic I  would like  to  discuss is the valorisation of knowledge.

And  last but not least,  there is the main theme of our conference, the progress – real or imagined – towards “knowledge democracy”. This morning’s next two speakers, Chris Peterson and David Stanners, will talk to you about transdisciplinary scholarship and evaluating evidence, respectively.  Without wishing to jump the gun, I would like to propose a conclusion  to this morning’s proceedings and  something to keep in mind during the remaining sessions and debates of this conference. And that is that  You cannot have democracy without evidence which is also  my third topic for today.

Now on the subject of working with knowledge, I would like to start off by saying that, to my mind,  the most vital condition/prerequisite for success is the art of connecting – connecting science, policy and practice. And by this I mean direct  contact, face-to-face meetings and real-time discourse. You cannot publish policy-relevant evidence on the internet or in old-fashioned books and then just assume that policy-makers will read what you produced and make good use of it. We all know better. And what we  have discovered is that this direct contact is a very effective way of linking research and knowledge to the arena of policies and practices.

In the Netherlands – and also specifically in “my” ministry – we are trying to  facilitate this direct approach . For example,  we organise  regular meetings of a Knowledge Chamber, which  connects  scientists from various disciplines with policy-makers and representatives  from the educational field.  The preparation for such a  Knowledge Chamber meeting involves  requesting preliminary research or policy papers from selected experts, papers which then form the basis of the  Chamber members’ debate.

The Knowledge Chamber – which now has  equivalents in other ministries - is a new and promising  development. However, it is also a dangerous and seductive instrument because as with all such channels, it tends to  become institutionalised and  can consequently lose  focus and lull you into a false sense of “doing the right thing”.

We are seeing the first signs of this already even though the Chamber’s first meeting  was only two years ago. But I should add two things: firstly, that being aware of the danger  means you are halfway to its solution. Secondly, that  the solution is to be found in the very concept of connecting and linking producers to users of knowledge –  through face-to-face contact and real-time discourse.
The success of this process lies in protecting it from becoming yet another institutionalised procedure. And that is exactly what we in the Netherlands intend to do. So watch this space! .

Of course, we  are not putting all our eggs in one basket. When working with knowledge, you  need to diversify. Knowledge happens everywhere and all the time. You will want to select what you work with. My ministry has started a new form of symbiosis between science and policy-making to help us do exactly that: select promising avenues for producing and using knowledge. This symbiosis is organised in the new TIER Institute, “TIER” standing for “Top Institute for Evidence-based Education Research”. An incentive by the ministry has prompted three universities to pool a select number of their top researchers into a research programme on educational social and economic topics related to policy and practice of education in The Netherlands. We hope to achieve the best of both worlds, the scientific and the political, through organising this rather new and even revolutionary interface.

I admit that – as is the case with the Knowledge Chamber – success is by no means  guaranteed. Designing new structures may  create a clash of vested interests.  Furthermore, your new designs may   turn out to be inaccessible and inconsequential.

Although knowledge is happening all the time and everywhere, it is also expensive. Knowledge is the result of employing human resource – and you may paraphrase this by saying that knowledge is money (just as time is). Working with knowledge presupposes/requires capacity – capacity for producing it, but also capacity to absorb and to  apply knowledge. Earlier, I said that publishing knowledge on the worldwide web or in scientific publications – in brief: making knowledge available – by no means guarantees its use.

The reason is, of course, that absorbing, digesting and translating knowledge costs time and capacity. In my ministry, policy-makers are busy people working with limited resources. You sometimes have to convince them that it is  beneficial to invest in gaining new knowledge,  despite the pressures of politics, publicity and popular opinionism. Basically, investing in evidence,  which leads me to my next point: the valorisation of knowledge .

It is not easy to determine when to use the word “knowledge” or rather its  partner term “evidence”. We have a Knowledge Chamber, but also a Top Institute for Evidence-based Educational Research. We have a Knowledge Directorate in my ministry – but this could  just as well be called the Evidence Directorate  The close relationship between knowledge and evidence is clear. And I would even go so far as to say  that when determining which of the two words  to use, we could just say that “evidence” is valorised “knowledge”.
 
So what is actually  meant by valorisation of knowledge?
Let me point out that valorisation is not an easy concept to grasp. In many cases, knowledge which is highly valuable  is not valorised at all. In other words, it loses its value, because it  has not been applied or transferred.  A case in hand is   the financial control systems’ disastrous failure to regulate monetary and economic processes . Valorisation, therefore, differs from the value or the price of knowledge . Knowledge is almost always valuable, if only for philosophical or even esthetical reasons. And knowledge , as we all know, does not come cheaply . Yet valorisation only occurs when knowledge is adequately applied.  By ‘ adequately’ I mean, 
at the right time – in the right place - to the right degree -  by the right actor  and within the right context. Allow me to point out that there is a normative dimension to this: knowledge  must be interpreted in order to  become valorised. I just used the word “right”  five times. There you have your norm(OR normativeness)

The normative aspect of valorisation is also to be found in the various definitions of valorisation which are currently being “tested”. According to some, valorisation is “the use of knowledge for creating social and economic value”. Another definition, derived from a strictly economic context,  defines valorisation very aptly as  “the creation of value from knowledge”. The Netherlands’ Advisory Council for Science and Technology, an association known for its thorough deliberations,  recently published a recommendation emphasizing the need for the valorisation of social, cultural and democratic knowledge.  Now we could debate these interpretations until the cows come home, but  I think we can agree that the first step of valorisation  is to  interpret knowledge. Interpretation  provides us with the templates  required to translate knowledge into evidence. And let us not forget that the decision regarding which  evidence to accept or to reject is a political one. Thus, in order to turn knowledge into evidence, you have to be aware of its price/value, you need to interpret its applicability and this process should be transparent  or you will be guilty of manipulation. But if the decision is  political, how can we ever hope to achieve the transparency and clarity needed to truly valorise knowledge?

We do ,of course,  have our methods. My ministry and other agencies involved have been saying for some years that it is important to encourage cooperation between public knowledge institutions, such as universities and research institutes, government agencies and industrial stakeholders. And this is important, if only because of what I said earlier about the need for direct contact.

But such an approach should not be restricted to stimulating institutional contacts.  Referring to a point  my Minister made  at a  symposium on the application of knowledge in 2007, ‘ good scientists do not sit down together to discuss how they can promote the interest of their society or their country. On the contrary. Good scientists focus on their research topic and do what they  do best which is their research. Valorisation is what follows.

And yet: knowledge is money. Vested interests are at stake. Among these are the taxpayers’ interests, which do not lack legitimacy. There has recently been a public outcry as it is felt that knowledge generated with the help of public money should  be made publicly accessible. As you can imagine, such demands  do not conform with current practices concerning valorisation – or with the  exclusivity of much excellent research.

So what are the solutions (to these dilemmas)? I would like to propose one possible solution  which combines democracy  and innovation and which  leads me to my final  point: You cannot have democracy without evidence.

Democracy is our greatest good/achievement. Yet  when it comes  to knowledge, it has its limits. What is scientifically true is not decided by  majority vote. Neither is evidence established by popular consent. Or is it?

Allow me to briefly remind you of an episode which only recently  demonstrated how – at least in the Netherlands – popular sentiment and scientific knowledge  can clash.

I am referring to what occurred when our national health authorities made a vaccination against cervical cancer available to all eligible adolescent girls. It  is difficult to imagine a more beneficial application of evidence: the vaccine had been developed and tested according to all methodological rules, knowledge had been valorised into evidence and  the resulting preventive inoculation was made readily available free of cost.

Yet normative aspects immediately  interfered with a process which had obviously not been sufficiently legitimised in the eyes of many people. In other words, the evidence had not been valorised.  Consequently, young girls and their parents  reverted to the internet which led to many deciding against the vaccination.   Many  felt  that the safety of the vaccine was not guaranteed;  that it had not been sufficiently tested; that girls had become sick or even died after the injection.

Worse still, rumour had it that there was a secret agenda behind the health authority’s appeal to be vaccinated – and that the injection was unnecessary to begin with.

The health authorities, completely unprepared for this development,  did not know what had hit them. All in all, the inoculation campaign had failed. So what went wrong?

First, let us establish a fact which is often overlooked: evidence is often not evident at first sight. Earlier, I said that it is necessary to interpret knowledge  if you wish to valorise it into applicable evidence. I also said that the decision what  or what not to accept as evidence is a political one. The vaccination episode  is also very obviously an emotional one.

Clearly, the relationship between  politics and emotions of democracy, on the one hand, and valorisation processes involving knowledge and evidence, on the other hand, are not self-evident or fail-safe. Important elements  are lost in translation. This discrepancy between perception and knowledge is a basic fact and can result in distrust. This fact should be an important consideration when dealing with the complexities of a knowledge democracy.
 
And this is where innovation comes to our aid. Or, to be more specific: innovative knowledge management. Both the dilemma of exclusiveness versus valorisation, as well as the mismatch between knowledge and perception,  could be tackled by creative new arrangements of the stakeholders involved. Again I would stress the importance of direct, personal  contact between these stakeholders.

Innovative knowledge management, as I see it, is based on flexible, informal personal contact.  However, these contacts should be sustained and facilitated so that they do not fade or peter out. This calls indeed for new arrangements.

A Knowledge Chamber or a TIER Institute may offer feasible approaches to such arrangements, but there are many more possibilities. There are already knowledge communities  on the internet something knowledge brokers should  not overlook. What if our health authorities, when launching their ill-fated inoculation campaign, had, from the outset, included social networking sites ,such as Hyves, in their strategy? 

Imagine what we could achieve  through  better  organisation of  feedback from knowledge users to the generators of knowledge?

Although we have the means to do it, it seems we lack the will. Yet the connection between citizens and scientists, the transparency between public, practitioners, politics and professors (the four P’s) is essential for a true knowledge democracy. Such a democracy cannot exist  on evidence alone.

The creative new arrangements needed to achieve innovative knowledge management are not only institutional; they are not just electronic or ict-based; they do not exclude the input from politicians or economists; they are flexible and informal, but at the same time, sustainable and facilitated; they are open without  threatening excellence; they are democratic without  being populist. In brief: such new arrangements may only result from a strong innovative drive encompassing our political and social psychology.

I believe that our society is, in many ways,   incomprehensible/unpredictable. Although knowledge happens everywhere and all the time,  we will probably never succeed in accomplishing the complete synthesis of what there is to know about human behaviour, attitude and society. We will, therefore, always be confronted with unsolvable questions and a discrepancy between, and distrust surrounding, knowledge and social reality.

But we already have processes to deal with these: we call them politics and democracy.  It is my conviction that innovative knowledge management  offers  promising perspectives.  Once we are convinced that having more evidence means having more options (instead of the other way around) a major cause of  discrepancies and distrust will evaporate. We will see that it is impossible to have democracy without having the evidence to sustain its complex knowledge base.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a strange thing with knowledge.
It is tricky stuff to work with.
It is expensive.
Democracy cannot do without it.

Thank you.