Life Science, Innovation and Society Network (LISTEN)
Mission Statement
European societies are currently experiencing a period of techno-scientific and societal
transformation comparable in scale and scope to previous upheavals such as the industrial, the
green and the biotech revolutions. Innovations in life science and the emergence of new biobased industries offer unprecedented opportunities to establish more sustainable and resilient
production systems in terms of energy, materials, agriculture and the environment. Such
innovations will be crucial to efforts to meet major societal challenges, not just within Europe
but globally. But in moving towards a sustainable bio-economy, regions and nations face a
range of major challenges and potential conflicts that necessitate new research agendas and a
new vision of society.
LISTEN, the Life Science, Innovation and Society Network, has been set up to help life
sciences consortia, policy organisations and civil society to address these challenges by
developing new research and policy agendas based on outstanding social science and
humanities expertise concerning the societal dimensions of new and emerging life sciences.
I. Emerging challenges on the path to sustainable bio-societies
The path towards sustainable bio-societies involves a number of interlocking challenges,
dilemmas and potential conflicts.
First, how to manage the transition towards a system of food production that is
environmentally, socially and economically sustainable and fair? The global biotechnological
revolution in food production brings a host of concrete challenges, from potential collisions
over use of resources (such as food versus fuel versus amenity), to questions of how to deal
socially with contested biotechnologies, to the development of appropriate sustainability
vignettes for sustainable products. Animal welfare, risk policies, nutritional equity and
(agro)biodiversity all raise questions that will dominate social and life science research
agendas for the next twenty years.
Second, how to establish sustainable and acceptable means of bio-energy production? Bio-
energy production offers one way of reducing carbon footprints and mitigating climate
change. But production of bio-fuels may come into conflict with other important
considerations such as food production, biodiversity and environmental sustainability, and
remains socially and environmentally disputed.
Third, how to effect a shift towards the use of new, bio-based materials and other products?
Innovation in this area will require the establishment of new bio-based production systems
involving the use of micro-organisms, viral agents, biomaterials and natural biotechnologies
on a massive scale. Such wholesale reorientation of industrial production systems poses major
policy challenges ranging from the coordination of scientific and industrial R&D to the
framing of appropriate intellectual property regimes and economic incentives.
A fourth challenge is posed by increasingly multifunctional use of nature’s services.
Increasingly intense exploitation of biological resources, including novel gene sequences as
well as bio-materials, will necessitate improved knowledge not just of the organisation and
functioning of ecosystems, but also of their complex interactions with human social and
industrial systems. Such knowledge will in turn need to be integrated into effective policy
frameworks if the sustainability and biodiversity of often vulnerable ecosystems are to be
safeguarded.
A fifth challenge concerns the medical application of the life sciences to maintain and
enhance the functions of the human body. New biomaterials and bio-prostheses are beginning
to pervade human bodies and brains, blurring the distinction between therapy and
enhancement; while new biotechnologies have the potential to alter the reproductive, mental
and aesthetic characteristics of human beings. Such innovations raise urgent questions about
social acceptability and appropriateness. How can we best ensure that new therapies and
enhancements progress in harmony with societal values and expectations?
Enhanced knowledge of and biotechnological power over human bodies in turn leads to a
sixth set of challenges concerning the very nature of human individuality and sociality. How
will the massive accumulation of new knowledge of individual origins, relations and
susceptibilities to disease and environmental chemicals interact with normative expectations
regarding a healthy or good life? How will it influence the formation of the human self and
the configuration of individual conduct, agency, autonomy and personhood? How will the
patterns of intimate interdependency and the configuration of wider social formations be
affected by such changes? And what sorts of policies will ensure that these transformations as
such as will conduce towards the establishment of a sustainable and resilient bio-society?
Seventh, what sort of knowledge will be necessary to grasp and manage the convergence and
entanglement of scientific and societal trajectories? Emerging fields of techno-science,
including nanotechnology, synthetic biology and new neuro-technologies, hold considerable
promise for the transition towards a bio-based society; but their development and
implementation will require social as much as technical innovation. Scientists and
industrialists, policy makers and other stakeholders will need to work in constructive
collaboration if such biotechnological promises are to be realised. What forms of sociotechnical interaction and organisation will best facilitate progress towards a robust bioeconomy?
Eighth, how can we enhance and mobilise the capacities of European societies to innovate
and invest in life science and technology in such a way that the co-evolution of science and
society will allow us to meet all the above challenges in a sustainable and socially desirable
way?
While the above challenges relate to widely divergent fields of human endeavour, it is plain
that they are all closely interconnected. All are rooted in emerging life sciences and
technologies; all are relevant to the prospect of developing a sustainable, bio-based society;
and all will require substantial investment, at a time of budget crises and scarcity, if that
prospect is to be realised. Moreover, none of these challenges is purely technical in nature; all
are inherently socio-technical, and meeting them will require a genuine integration of social
and technical expertise. Conceptually, this will necessitate a comprehensive, synthetic, multiperspective approach which takes full account of the complexity and interdependency of the
various challenges. And practically, it will require effective collaboration between academic,
industrial, policy and civil society actors. In short, it will require the creation of a new
knowledge society consonant with the organisation and management of a functioning bioeconomy.
Finally, all these challenges inevitably transcend national boundaries and national interests. As
such, their solution will require international cooperation between technical and societal
experts to develop a global view on the future of emerging bio-societies and to align scientific
and societal agendas to create a sustainable and just global bio-economy.
II. Who we are
LISTEN, the Life Science, Innovation and Society Network, brings together a number of
leading international centres and individual experts engaged in addressing the societal
dimensions of emerging biosciences. Rooted in cutting-edge research in the fields of science
and technology studies, innovation studies, philosophy of science and bioethics, our work
goes beyond traditional ELSA approaches (concerned with addressing specific ethical, legal
or social “aspects” of particular techno-scientific developments) by pursuing a comprehensive
and multi-dimensional understanding of the complex socio-technical character of modern life
science and technology and their increasingly pervasive role in modern society.
Our aim in developing this new understanding of life science in society has not been merely
academic. On the contrary, we have been concerned to play an active role in efforts to address
the societal issues raised by emerging life sciences and technologies. Over the past two
decades, the centres and individuals who together constitute LISTEN have involved
themselves directly in the work of ensuring an effective embedding of new life science and
technology in European societies. To that end, we have worked closely with scientists, policy
makers and other stakeholders to devise appropriate research trajectories, governance
procedures, policy instruments and other initiatives, informed by an interdisciplinary
anticipatory perspective on emerging trends in life science and society. Indeed, LISTEN is
notable for the wealth of its links with life science researchers, industrial and policy actors
and a range of other stakeholders, which locate it at the heart of a wider network of actors
concerned to meet the challenges posed by a transition to a sustainable bio-economy and an
equitable bio-society. These linkages extend beyond Europe to a growing global network
including partners in the US, Canada and Australia but also in less developed countries.
Individually and together, the members of LISTEN have in effect created a new research field
and research community that brings relevant social science and humanities expertise into
dialogue with societal organizations, policy makers and industry. Our field is not a new subdiscipline, but rather a new and highly interactive way of doing research, where relevance and
quality are closely connected, interdisciplinarity is central, and academics act not just as
knowledge producers but as mediators and brokers between various forms of expertise,
including academic science, social science and humanities researchers, but also a wide range
of civil society stakeholders. Our field is as much a “mediation discipline” as an academic
enterprise, and can perhaps best be summed up under the heading of “social life sciences”.
III. Our mission
LISTEN’s mission is to use our collective expertise and experience to help overcome the
challenges on the path to sustainable bio-societies. In pursuing that mission, LISTEN has two
fundamental aims:
First, we aim to identify, investigate and address strategically important topics and issues
related to the emergence of bio-economies and the creation of bio-based societies. Building
on past achievements in genomics and related areas, we will expand our research networks
and methodologies to address new emerging and converging fields and topics in the postgenomic era of synthetic biology, biomaterials and bio-nanoscience.
Secondly, we aim to build socio-technical capacity to address such issues by strengthening
the links between (bio)science and (bio)society and by fostering productive engagement and
exchange between emerging life sciences, politics, business and industry, funding agencies,
intermediary organizations and media active in the biosector.
The fulfilment of these aims will depend upon the pursuit of high-quality, innovative and
collaborative social science and humanities research into the socio-technical dimensions of
bio-innovation, oriented towards policy-relevant insights and recommendations and the
promotion of evidence-based policy. Such research will need to look beyond individual case
studies of specific aspects of novel technologies to develop a comprehensive, shared
understanding of the social dynamics of bio-based economies and the techno-scientific
character of bio-societies. Consequently, in order to build on and extend our distinctive
approach to understanding and shaping emerging bio-economies and bio-societies, LISTEN
will:
coordinate high-quality, collaborative, national and international research initiatives in
the field of social life sciences, where appropriate in partnership with biosciences
programmes and innovative industry
disseminate the findings and implications of such research through a wide range of
conferences, publications, letters to professional journals, policy briefs, exchanges and
placements etc.
liaise directly with funding agencies to inform research agendas at the local, national
and international level
But academic research and collaboration alone will not suffice. Agenda development to meet
societal challenges must be a multi-stakeholder effort involving academia, industry and civil
society in order to ensure that bioscience and innovation are embedded in wider programmes
of social renewal. The alignment of scientific and societal agendas will necessitate close
interaction from the outset with experts from academic science and innovative industries as
well as with societal experts including representatives from policy and civil society. We will
therefore engage not only with academic peers in Europe and internationally, but also with
experts involved in industrial innovation, science policy, science journalism, regulatory bodies
and governmental research organisation. We will also work to enhance the quality and
productiveness of such engagements by pursuing innovative means to:
integrate social life science perspectives into bio-scientific and industrial R&D
develop new ways of stimulating policy debate and decision making within the policy
community and in civil society more generally
ensure that the development of the social life sciences perspective is itself informed by
wider social interests, expectations and values and by the need for global justice
APPENDIX 1: Members of LISTEN
Current Principal Investigators of our network
Agnes Allansdottir
CLB
Siena
Anne Cambon-Thomsen
INSERM
Toulouse
David Castle
INNOGEN
Edinburgh
Ruth Chadwick
CESAGEN
Cardiff
Keith Culver
UniverSud
Paris
John Dupre
EGENIS
Exeter
George Gaskell
LSE
London
Herbert Gottweis
LSG
Vienna
Michiel Korthals
CSG
Wageningen
Patricia Osseweijer
CSG
Delft
Peter Phillips
VALGEN
Saskatchewan
Steve Sturdy
Genomics Forum
Edinburgh
Hub Zwart
CSG
Nijmegen
APPENDIX 2: What we have achieved so far
Individually and collectively, LISTEN members have already achieved much that can be
regarded as contributing to the initiatives necessary to address the challenges on the path to
sustainable bio-economies and bio-societies. In addition to a wealth of collaborative research
and the establishment of an emerging field of social life sciences, these include, to cite just a
few examples:
Cesagen researchers contributed to the international negotiations that resulted in the October
2010 ‘Nagoya Protocol’ on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing to the
Convention on Biological Diversity. This legally binding international protocol provides the
basic rules for the terms of access to the majority of the world’s genetic resources and the
sharing of any resulting benefits with countries, indigenous peoples and local communities.
Cesagen contributed to this process through supporting other actors (for example through
preparing the European patent indicator on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing for
the European Environment Agency), through submission of discussion papers (for instance on
development of ‘open source’ or ‘commons’ licensing models for access to genetic resources)
and through direct involvement in the discussions themselves (as a member of the ‘Open
Research Group’ representing the interests of the non-commercial research community at the
negotiating table). In addition to the general shape of the protocol, Cesagen’s contributions
had a direct impact on the inclusion of Article 6 (requiring countries to create conditions to
promote and encourage research as part of their legislation or regulatory requirements) and
Article 13(c) and its reference to “Encouraging the use of cost-effective communication tools
and systems”.
Innogen’s expertise on the regulation of pharmaceuticals and new biotechnology products has
informed initiatives by industry and regulators to develop new business models in
pharmaceuticals and biomedicines and to promote ‘smart regulation’ with a view to
maximising the potential for effective pharmaceutical innovation and widening access to
innovative medicines.
Innogen’s work on the EU-funded “Target” project has produced a policy toolkit to enable
countries or regions to develop and implement interventions that will support performing
systems of biotech innovation. The toolkit is designed to act as a strategic policy-making road
map and is currently being road tested across Europe. The toolkit has potential to develop
more effective policy frameworks that support innovation and economic growth in life
science-based sectors around the world.
Egenis expertise on stem cell research has been presented to the Austrian Government
(Bundeskanzleramt) and, within the UK, to the House of Lords, the BBSRC, the HTA, and
members of the UK Stem Cell Network Steering Committee. It has also led to engagement
with biomedical and regulatory experts in the UK (including the Cardiovascular
Collaborative, the BBSRC/MRC Stem Cells Public Workshops) and in Germany (Zentrale
Ethikkommission Stammzellenforschung).
In December 2010 the Genomics Forum co-hosted, with the OECD’s Global Forum on
Biotechnology, a major international conference at OECD Headquarters on the topic
“Delivering Global Promise Through the Life Sciences”. This was the first time that the
Working Party or the Global Forum on Biotechnology had ever systematically consulted
social scientists (other than economists), and national representatives to the OECD from
Canada, USA, Korea, Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic, France and Finland among
others, all attended the conference.