Dear Colleagues,

Today’s society encounters big and complex challenges which policymakers try to address. For example, the reaction to COVID-19 pandemics across the world has shown the conflicting nature of policy problems and solutions. It is similar with other important global issues related to sustainable development, climate changes, energy transition, food security and migration, as well as some more local problems faced by middle-income countries like Serbia (e.g., high air pollution, low access to basic facilities including drinkable water and sanitation, depletion and suboptimal management of natural resources, depopulation, high poverty, low technology absorption etc.). These problems are usually linked with high uncertainty and opposed values in relation to the underlying goals of the society. To deal with these and similar societal challenges, policymakers need to use evidence obtained by scientists. In addition, policymakers from their side can even streamline the directions for research by suggesting relevant priority research questions. Moreover, the availability of technology and data has progressed to the extent that they offer new possibilities to solve some important policy problems. Big data, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are new tools to support policy analysis and the design of novel policy solutions. Although the science-policy dialogue has been highlighted and put on a high level by many developed countries, there is still a great deal of room for strengthening these links. The level of dialogue is on a more rudimentary level in developed countries. In Serbia, for example, very few policy decisions rely on ex-ante evaluation and scientific evidence. The most evident cases escalated recently in relation to sustainability issues and resulted in massive public mobilization. Namely, the official decision to issue permits to businesses for the exploitation of natural resources by building mini hydropower plants in one case, or to exploit lithium by building a mine in another, was strongly opposed by the scientific community, which brought evidence to the public warning of the harmful effects on the environment.

Science and public administration have two very different cultures. Scientific research is produced in an academic environment with almost no hierarchy where values like creativity, innovation and experimentation are highly valued. Researchers are motivated by the desire to produce objective evidence and publish it after exposing it to a peer-review process. Science uses a formalized, often mathematized, abstract way of communicating findings, including a reserve in terms of the level of certainty. On the contrary, politicians are driven by answering promptly to public issues. They are sensible to public mood and often conflicting interests of different groups that they try to reconcile through acceptable solutions. In their policymaking tasks, they are supported by civil servants. The latter operate in a highly hierarchical environment. They are primarily concerned by the legitimacy of decisions made through the official rules. Driven by this main concern, public administration develops a rather conservative culture, with a low level of openness for innovation and flexibility while strongly relying on predefined procedures and rules. Unlike scholars, civil servants have no specialization for a specific topic, as they are expected to deal with different policy problems. The large distance of these two cultures, science and policymaking, was recently represented in the parodical movie “Don’t Look Up”, which quickly gained worldwide popularity.

In order to face societal issues which are often complex, sometimes described as wicked problems, the two worlds of science and policy must approach each other to collaborate. Civil servants and politicians need to learn how to obtain, interpret and use the relevant scientific results. On the other hand, scientists need to understand the functioning of the state and the overall political dynamics around decision processes linked to public policy. This a precondition for them to channel their results in a way that has an impact on society. A part of the solution lies in proper educational programs at all levels of education.

This Special Issue will focus on topics at the crossroads between science and public policy which can put more light on the ways to strengthen these links. We welcome contributions on the use of scientific evidence to improve specific policies in the broadest framework of sustainable development topics like environment policy, climate-related social responses, the sustainable use of natural resources, demographic issues, migration, health policy and local economic development.

We also encourage empirical and theoretical contributions related to the use of data science methods and other scientific and innovative approaches (e.g., experiments) to strengthen the quality of evidence-based decisions on public policies.

Last but not least, we encourage contributions reflecting on specific education and governance topics which highlight the practices and methods for making scientific evidence more consumable for policy makers and impactful for society. Interdisciplinary contributions combining different scientific fields from both “hard” sciences (notably data science, physics, geography, environmental and agricultural studies, chemistry, and biology) as well as social sciences and humanities (e.g., economics, demography, public health, political sciences, sociology, history, and psychology) are particularly welcome.

Prof. Dr. Slobodan B. Marković
Dr. Jasna Atanasijević
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• education
• public policy
• sustainable development
• science