How does the evidence-based approach contribute to ethical policy making in science and technology?

Abstract

Evidence-based policy-making is an ongoing process of gathering legal and ethical information, analyzing it intelligently, and disseminating intelligence at the operational level in a controlled manner to policymakers. This approach makes the policymakers have a proactive approach to the consequences of science and technology (S&T) and formulate ethical policies to achieve desirable economic and social results in the field of S&T. The purpose of this research is to describe how the evidence-based approach contributes to ethical policy-making in S&T. To achieve this goal while explaining the evidence-based policy-making approach, the concept of strategic intelligence in policy-making has been used to explain the theoretical foundations of the research. Then, the ethical components of evidence-based policy-making are identified from related resources and documents using the documentary study. To classify the ethical components of evidence-based policy-making, identify the relationships between them, and formulate the framework of evidence-based ethical policy-making, a thematic analysis method inspired by the 7-step approach of Noblit and Hare (1988) has been used. Based on the results of this research, the steps of evidence-based ethical policy-making are the Identification of information sources, Analytical tools of strategic intelligence in policy-making, Policy intelligence, and ethical policy formulation. Also, in all these steps, policymakers must follow the principles of politics that have an ethical aspect, including participation, objectivity, methodicality, and learning.

Keywords

• evidence-based approach
• ethical policy-making
• strategic intelligence
• science and technology
• intelligence tools