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Regulatory agencies as sites of regulatory knowledge : an IFRIS workshop
le 21.06.2012
Technological innovation is at the centre of contemporary western societies, and so is regulation. As new technologies and products have appeared along the XXth century, regulatory bodies have been created to look over their safety, quality, efficacy, reliability and even accessibility. Medicines, foods, chemical products, biological innovations but also aircraft, ships or financial products are affected by this evolution. The regulatory organisations that control these technologies and markets – whether by delivering permits or patents, setting product specifications, performing risk assessments, or performing some other function – are inevitably knowledge-intensive. They are organised to gather and treat information, they maintain large databases, execute or order experiments and tests, employ great numbers of scientific staff, and negotiate close relationships with the academic world.
Regulatory agencies face multiple demands and challenges, that impact on the forms and content of the knowledge they produce. These include, among others, the standardisation of evaluative practices across domains or countries, the combination of expert assessments and more situated or lay knowledge, the articulation of regulatory science with research science or the systematic consideration of cost and benefits motives, beyond that of risk. These changes stem from actors that regulatory agencies are closely, and perhaps increasingly, tied with : the regulatory science and regulatory testing industry, transnational research consortia, standard-setting bodies, NGOs, but also their counterparts from other countries and regulatory domains.
The workshop aims to address the topic of the transformation of regulatory science and knowledge, using regulatory agencies as the main site in which these transformations occur. Going beyond the study of agencies in isolation, it approaches regulatory agencies as interconnected sites in which regulatory knowledge – its practices, its culture, its norms and procedures, and so on – change as agencies respond to a variety of industrial, scientific or political challenges.
The workshop will take place at the CNAM in Paris on 21-22 June 2012.
If you would like to attend the workshop, please register by sending an email to Julie Rust (rust@ifris.org), including your name and affiliation.
- Programme Workshop 21-22 June 2012