About

For several decades, MIT SIC has developed and tested innovative approaches to harmonizing science, politics, and public policy to advance the public interest. The tools and approaches we rely on most include collaborative adaptive management (CAM), participatory action research (PAR), joint fact-finding, scenario planning, role-play simulation, and mediated multiparty negotiation. These applied social science methods enable stakeholders to participate directly in decisions that affect them. We have shown that, when used properly, they can improve decisions about where, whether, and how to site renewable energy facilities; ensure that climate adaptation leads to greater community resilience and the protection of coastal resources; facilitate the management of shared waters at every scale; help cities and towns achieve basic levels of cybersecurity; and help indigenous communities tap their traditional knowledge to address new technical problems of various kinds.

Many scientists and scientific organizations believe that conducting the most advanced scientific studies will persuade policymakers and large groups of stakeholders to take their findings to heart and follow their recommendations. They also believe that investing in more technology is the best way to address the key problems we face. At SIC, we don’t agree. In our view, we need a fundamental realignment in how science is produced and how scientific findings are used by the public. The realignment we have in mind ought to prioritize greater social equity, more direct accountability from decision-makers, vastly expanded public engagement, and a much greater emphasis on the sustainable use of resources when our shared interests are at stake. In the absence of such a realignment, additional scientific information will be ignored or contested. Public policy choices that ought to take science seriously won’t. We urgently need to implement new decision support systems that enable stakeholders with radically different beliefs and interests to engage in civic discourse (i.e., public learning) and achieve consensus-based decision-making.

MIT SIC was founded more than twenty years ago with initial backing from the United States Geological Survey. Over the past several decades, the Collaborative has worked with a wide range of partners and supporters across Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Latin America, and the United States. Researchers from MIT SIC—including more than 50 doctoral students, master's students, undergraduates, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty—are training, through our MIT-based Clinics, continuous generations of "public interest technologists” by volunteering our "learning time” as a form of direct assistance to partner communities (in multiple countries).