Contenu du sommaire : Les chercheurs au coeur de l'expertise

The choice and role of expert witnesses
Expert appraisals are often crucial in legal proceedings concerning liability in matters of public health. Experts are required to reconstruct facts or to appraise the work of colleagues who act in an advisory capacity to policy-makers, in order to establish whether the quality of the expert studies and advice provided have been adequate to the importance of the health issues. In France, expert witnesses have an official status subject to a regulated procedure that includes specific and regular audits. Although this procedure clearly identifies the competences of court-appointed experts, it is far too lengthy and cumbersome for researchers to gain access to this status. Clearer procedures capable of distinguishing expert appraisals from lobbying also need to be established.

A science of free trade? How the WTO brings scientific expertise into trade disputes
The high-profile WTO trade dispute on GMOs brought in scientific expertise in somewhat novel ways. From the outset, the Panel placed the dispute under the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement by drawing on a new legal ontology. The Panel brought scientific expertise into play in specific ways that defined how experts were questioned, the answers they would give, their specific role in the legal arena, and the way their statements would complement the Panel's findings. Furthermore, the Panel created a procedural turning point in WTO jurisprudence by representing its findings as a purely legal and administrative assessment of whether the EC's regulatory procedures violated the SPS Agreement, with its own assessments on substantive risk issues remaining implicit.

How conflicts of interest can influence research results
In the field of biomedicine, which is the main object addressed in this article, the literature shows a direct correlation between industrial funding for research and the communication of results that are favourable to the industry. This effect, known as the “funding effect”, has been persistently found since the 1990s. It can also affect other fields such as agri-foods or environmental and health risk assessments.Conflicts of interest can influence research subconsciously or deliberately. In this article, we analyse the various ways in which conflicts of interest can influence the way scientific activities proceed, as well as the effectiveness of the different solutions put forward to manage the influence exerted.

Scientific expertise in medicine
The goal of quality in the health-care system is common to professionals, policy-makers and users. Assessments of medical technologies and formalised expressions of the state of the art of medical knowledge both aim to improve decision-making for the public authorities and for health care professionals and users. Innovation should not be brought into question by the assessment procedure itself or by the various interested connections of working group members, including experts : the quality of expert scientific assessments in medicine must rely on the education of all those involved, including teachers and decision-makers.

CNRS adaptation of the National Charter on Expert Studies
The CNRS governing board adopted its internal Charter on Expert Studies on 23 June 2011, which adapts the National Charter on Expert Studies to the specific features of CNRS activities. The internal CNRS Charter rests on the principle of efficient striving to address two major issues concerning scientific expert studies : the credibility of experts and the quality of expert study processes and output.

A field survey on collective expert studies at INSERMThis article reports on a field survey conducted in 2010 and 2011 among those involved in the expert studies conducted collectively at Inserm (members of the Inserm expert studies department, experts and journalists). The survey aimed to test the assumption that the factors that arouse public controversy are inherent to the process of producing expert studies, regardless of the topic they address.

A history of collective expert studies at INSERM and current issues
In response to demand from the institutions involved in public health, Inserm has taken its research mission further by becoming involved in knowledge sharing and dissemination and in discussions on the implications of its research for society. Now working as a member of the Public Health Institute (one of France's 10 multi-organisation Institutes) through the National Alliance for Life and Health Sciences (Alliance nationale pour les sciences de la vie et de la santé or Aviesan), INSERM's collective expert studies are contributing to its strategic plan for 2010-2015 : “the experience gained in collectively developed expert studies will be strengthened to serve an active policy for delivering available knowledge to support decision-making in the public health system and citizens' information”.

Collective expert scientific studies on “herbicide-tolerant varieties”: feedback from experience
These collective expert scientific studies on “herbicide-tolerant varieties” involved some twenty experts from very different disciplines in a “sensitive” topic. This article describes how the experts were chosen, how they interacted with their ministerial clients, how the group of experts functioned and the outcomes of its assessments. It investigates the way minority opinions were handled by the expert group, as well as the crucial question of recognition of the work of the scientists who took part, in relation to expectations among the research organisations.

Expert scientific studies at Inra: understanding the issues underlying requests
In 2002, Inra included collective expert scientific studies in its areas of competence – agriculture, environment and food – in response to public policy issues mainly arising in the Ministries of Agriculture and Ecology. The governing principles of the exercise, set out in Inra's Charter on expert scientific studies, were formulated on the basis of prior experience, as were the procedures built up to guarantee the quality of the studies. This article describes on the first phase of the process, which is decisive in terms of the relevance of the work undertaken. For the experts, the task requires an understanding of the context, the issues and the reasons for the request, while the decision-makers have to understand what they can expect from an approach that sets out to analyse and compile knowledge within the time allotted to the exercise.

The role of expert appraisals in AERES assessments
In higher education and research, four areas are subject to assessments of expertise: research units, training programmes, research organisations and higher education and research establishments, and staff assessment procedures. In turn, expert appraisal is central to the assessment methods implemented by AERES in the field of higher education and research.

What is a government of experts? The Italian example
Mario Monti's government, which took office in Italy in November 2011, is undoubtedly a “government of experts”, since all its members are specialists. However, their legitimacy is based not so much on their areas of competence as on their difference (in style especially) compared to the previous “political class”, and on the fact that they are seen as responsible for applying decisions that the laws of economics have made inevitable. A “government of objectivity” after twenty years of personalisation.

Ineffectiveness of the right of access to environmental information concerning chemical risks
Under the regulations governing marketing authorisation for chemical substances, information on chemical risks to health and the environment generally has to be produced by the industries concerned for submission to the health agencies. Public access to this information is governed by international, European and national legal provisions, and based on the principles of transparency and the freedom to access and re-use the information. However, various factors are restricting the effectiveness of this right to information and, consequently, restricting democratic and scientific oversight of risk assessments. The relevant legal texts are split between environmental legislation and legislation on access to public data. The right of access can be legally limited on grounds of confidentiality and protection of trade secrets, under provisions that allow businesses to protect their commercial interests but which can be interpreted arbitrarily by the health agencies. Finally, on the practical level, the lack of clarity of the format, the language used and the interfaces can be an obstacle to effective access and re-use of the data.

Militant biodiversity experts, a global network at the heart of socio-technical controversies
This article analyses the main characteristics of a network of civil society organisations involved in biodiversity advocacy. It investigates the discourse on biodiversity produced by these NGOs, the formation of a structured network, its specific activities in the production and dissemination of information and its hybrid position combining expertise and activism.

Arrogance and the interplay of un-communication and strategic deception
Although the word is often used in media discourse, “arrogance” in itself has rarely been studied. Our analysis of discourses taken from a press review highlights the mechanisms of arrogance and the interplay of un-communication and strategic deception, which must therefore be considered together. By negating this interplay and by interweaving misconception and contempt, arrogance negatively highlights the powerful link between information, communication and strategy.

From the consensus of the heart to the consensus of argument: the concept of democracy in the works of Rousseau and Habermas. The thinking of Rousseau and Habermas, as social theorists, confirms the understanding of democracy as a revolutionary political system, by considering it as the rational form of consensual management of public affairs in a human society. In putting forward their concept of democracy, these thinkers advocate particular forms of consensus. For Rousseau, democracy promotes a consensus of the heart by allowing citizens to be citizen-magistrates in the process of democratization of society. Habermas, however, advocates a consensus of argument in a democracy. Participation in deliberations, when based on informal logic or argumentation theory, is certainly what gives radical democracy its credibility.