For months (it seemed longer), visitors to Roger Pielke, Jr.’s blog have been greeted by this image
and this scrap of text: This blog is going to go silent for the summer, as I turn my attention to completing the 2nd edition of The Honest Broker.
Happily the summer dry spell appears to be over. Professor Pielke’s web site once again is beginning to feature posts.
The most recent might be of special interest to those readers who have participated in the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium over the years. At that annual event, early-career scientists get a ten-day crash course in how Washington works. They hear from government executives, Congressional staff, and many of the other players in the Washington scene. They’re encouraged along the way to become as disciplined in their approach to the policy process as they are with respect to their science and engineering.
Part of that instruction covers communicating with Congress… and that’s the topic of Dr. Pielke’s post: Some Advice on Advice. He opens this way…
My latest Bridges column is just out, and in it I provide some advice on giving evidence to policy makers, fresh off my Senate testimony last month. Here is how it begins:
Last month I was invited to testify before a hearing of the US Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works on the science of climate change. It is a privilege to be called upon to share one’s expertise with policy makers. Yet most experts, and certainly most academic experts, receive little training in how to engage effectively with policy makers in a formal setting such as an evidentiary public hearing. I am fortunate to have had excellent mentors over the past several decades, who shared with me some key advice for engaging effectively in the policy process. I would like to pass along a bit of their advice, which I have come to appreciate…
So, to those of you who aspire to give effective expert testimony to the Congress some day, here’s some advice: give the Bridges column a complete read now, and bookmark it for your future use.
Summer Policy Colloquium participants not only hear from experts but also do group exercises and case studies, as well as some preassigned reading. In past years that’s included The Honest Broker. Future participants can look forward to getting copies of the 2nd edition.