Crowdsourcing Science and Technology Expertise to Empower Legislative Branch Oversight and Policymaking

Abstract

As the U.S. and the world struggle through the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for science and technology (S&T) expertise in governance has become even more stark. But in the U.S., the vast majority of legislators and their staffs is generalist, and they have limited resources for engaging with S&T. This can be a barrier to both legislative branch oversight of S&T-related issues and the development of evidence-based public policies, two functions that are especially critical in times of crisis. The obstacles to addressing these gaps have, however, created opportunities for innovations in how lawmakers connect with S&T resources, resulting in new models for scientist-policymaker engagement. Our program, the Congressional Science Policy Initiative, experiments with models for connecting crowdsourced S&T expertise with policymakers, namely, by enriching key congressional hearings with contributions gathered from the science community, organizing advisory councils of scientists and engineers that brief lawmakers, and crowdsourcing technical assistance from the S&T community for legislative initiatives. These activities, which rely on the collective intelligence of the S&T community and have been readily applied to supporting lawmakers’ decision-making processes during the pandemic, have bolstered legislative branch oversight of the executive branch, fact-finding into corporate practices, and evidence-based policymaking.