Scientists’’ Impact on Decision-Making: A Case Study of the China Hi-Tech Research and Development Program

With the increasing influence of science and technology (S&T) on socioeconomic life and public affairs, there has been a growing demand for S&T expertise in today’s public decision-making.

The National High Technology Research and Development Program (863 Program), involving hundreds of S&T experts, marked the beginning of a new journey for China’s high-tech development. This book discusses China’s S&T decision-making mechanism, with the 863 Program as the central case and scientist’ influence on public decision-making as the focus. More importantly, it extracts three key elements to analyze the determinative factors behind that influence -knowledge, value and institutions, and proposed a KIV framework of macro-analysis.

The KIV, being the first framework to generalize factors that could affect scientists’ influence on public decision-making, is of both theoretical significance and innovative value. In addition, by finding out those factors, this book attempts to create a decision-making environment conducive to scientists’ contribution of their knowledge.

Peng Ru is currently an associate professor in School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University. His research interests and publications focus on the science and technology policy, new energy policy and policy process.