After six and half months, the Ministry of Education has published the provisional lists of persons who has achieved this grant. Unfortunately, our candidate Enrique Baleriola is not in this list. For this reason, we want to publish the project we planned to deploy in case of getting it.
Title:
Pandemics and Society. The new biorisk management in the European Union.
Introduction:
The history of the XXI century has begun with a deep development of biomedical knowledge and probably, the progress in this field will become the milestone that will mark the development of that century. The emergence of a Global Health, the increase of the mechanisms of detection and alert to the emergence of new infectious vectors, or the creation of new strategies to manage biohazards are some examples of such milestones.
More specifically, biohazards have become so important topic that various local, national and international institutions consider it one of their priorities. Thus, the World Health Organization has produced many documents and has created observatories to prevent the spread of infectious unknown vectors (WHO, 2008); the European Union has prepared various guidelines (EU, 2002); and they have also grown in importance the Centre for Disease Control of the United States and its European counterpart, the European Centre for Disease Control. Moreover, from some years, it has added to this interest the Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO, 2007), the World Trade Organization (WTO, 2008), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 2000) or the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 2011). With regard to our country, we should mention that there are several organizations that intertwine with the above functions, such as ministries of the Spanish State (Foreign, Health, Home Office...) and hospitals and reference laboratories (Carlos III Hospital in Madrid and Hospital Clinic in Barcelona).
Along with the above policy initiatives, it has begun to generate an enormous techno-scientific knowledge focused on the management of the biohazard as HealthMap or other applications seeking to develop early warning systems in which citizens have a relevant importance or the grown investment in BigData research (see Nambiar, Sethi, Bhardwaj and Vargheese, 2013; Young, 2014) as a complementary data source to that provided by health centers.
This situation has meant that for several years in the social sciences arise some studies trying to elucidate the role to be played by citizen, that in most cases, is alien to the latest discoveries and the advancement of knowledge in these areas. In this sense we can mention the work of authors such as Rose and Novas (2003); Petryna (2004); or Barker (2010); The results are of great relevance to examine: a) how biomedical knowledge impacts on our society; b) how citizenship reappropriates and put into use such knowledge c) and how the recent development of biohazards transformed our surveillance systems and general security.
All previous studies reported that in today's knowledge societies can no longer sustain the idea that users, public or citizens have little or no say in relation to advances in biomedical matter given the complexity of the same. On the contrary, they say that you are born a whole political and scientific tradition which holds that techno-scientific knowledge recipients should participate in its development and implementation. Such is a value that strengthens both our own production democracies expert knowledge. And this citizen involvement in the production and implementation of knowledge in biohazard is defined by some as a new biohazard management strategy as opposed to the classical risk calculations performed epidemiologists.
In this new management biohazard especially it emphasizes the creation of fictional scenarios but with a very close relation to our reality as a basic tool of knowledge production (Collier, 2008; Lakoff 2008). For them, citizenship is a key player in the decision making and implementation of protocols. In our country, the lack of scientific studies in this area is remarkable although those contributions Tirado, Gomez and Rocamora, 2015; Tirado, Baleriola, Giordani and Torrejon, 2014 or Tirado, Baleriola Gomez, Giordani and Torrejon, 2014; and the R & D project to which this work will be attached, entitled: "Health and technoscience.Citizen participation in the processes of social appropriation of knowledge and technological design "(CSO2014-59136-P). In all of them is examined how citizens participate in scientific and technical products in terms of biohazard. In this line of analysis this project is framed.
Objectives:
Our investigation begins with the following hypothesis: the social appropriation of expert knowledge and public participation are a democratic value. This knowledge can be enhanced by analyzing the mechanisms that establish parameters to describe the permanent interaction between laymen and experts. In that sense, we propose the following objective:
1. To analyze the dimensions involved in the social appropriation of expertise knowledge in the in biosafety and biohazard realm. That is, to examine the psychosocial, cultural and individual elements that can operate in that exercise.
And, in order to achieve this goal, we propose the following specific objectives:
1.1. Determining the choice of stakeholders involved in the development of protocols on biosafety.
1.2 Analyze biosafety protocols used in research laboratories, specialized health centers in contagion from infectious vectors and military units specialized in biological warfare.
1.3 Analyze how are used and implemented protocols on biosafety.
1.4 Analyze how to make and mean daily practices related to biological threats and risks.
1.5 Design and conduct a citizen panel in which experts and laymen share their views on the knowledge produced in the field of biohazard.
The choice of this target due to the following reasons:
a) First, it is an area of great importance in our societies.
b) Secondly, it is a space that has not been developed in our country too many analysis on the social appropriation of knowledge and public participation.
c) Finally, it is an area in which the relationship between experts and lay people is particularly close, since biomedical knowledge (biohazard dimensions, etc.) is especially present in our daily lives.
The present research proposal and its objectives are suited to a brand of new research interest being carried out internationally about the social implications of scientific knowledge in biotechnology and biosafety and biohazard (See for example Canada, 2013; Dobson, Barker and Taylor, 2013; Samimian-Darash, 2011, 2009; Lakoff, 2009; Carduff, 2008; Lakoff and Collier, 2008; or Collier, Lakoff and Rabinow, 2004). Similarly, it conforms to the national strategy of research projects R & D in the sense that is marked in areas of basic concern such as: health, safety and social change. In addition, as mentioned, be framed in an R + D + I recently granted.
However, despite this context, there is not still research on the specific mechanisms used by laymen, especially in the field of health are examined, to appropriate expertise and to intervene and participate in the generation of new knowledge and technologies. Therefore, our research would be a new contribution to deepen in these aspects. The reasons why we have chosen the field of biohazard as concrete space within the field of health will allow us to examine both the mechanisms of social appropriation of expert knowledge and the elements that characterize the citizen participation in the production of it are as follows :
a) It is a space that has become particularly strength and relevance in the world of health (remember the recent outbreak of Ebola, news of N1H1, etc.).
b) It is an area that has not yet received much attention from the social sciences.
c) It forms a block of analysis that neither the rest of Europe nor our country have developed too many studies on the role that the expert-lay relationship can play in the development and implementation of its techno-scientific production.
Given the above, perform this task in research is important because many experts and international institutions like the WHO believe that the great problem of biohazard management today is how protocols are received by their users. Knowledge of infection, its spread, prevention, care, etc. usually it greeted with alarm by the non-expert citizen and often such reception leads to a misunderstanding of it as unnecessary situations of collective panic. Therefore, an examination of how the non-experts receive such knowledge and how they appropriate it would have an overall scientific impact and other more local and targeted. The first one would allow us to understand better the mechanisms involved in social appropriation of expert knowledge on the part of the laity and, the second one, will help to develop biosecurity protocols that would allow to overcome the problems mentioned above.
Photo Credit: Chris Ford
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