Introduction

The Bristol-based Social Science in the City initiative (see: http://hls.uwe.ac.uk/research/ssc.aspx), around which this book is based, is a variation on the model of the café scientifique. The origins of café scientifique can be traced to the café philosophique movement that developed in France in the early 1990s. Café scientifique refers to a grassroots public science initiative that, according to the café scientifique website (see: http://www.cafescientifique.org/), is currently running across 42 cities in the UK and cities in other countries. It typically consists of one monthly meeting in which one or several scientists talk about their work. These meetings are pitched at an informal level and are believed to improve the image of science and scientists. According to its proponents, café scientifique is not a place so much as an idea based around the informal and discursive ambience of the café. It is now a global phenomenon with national variations, and is closely linked to the growth of internet technology and the globalisation of media technologies.

More generally, the background rationale for café scientifique can be located in the gap between expert knowledge and an increasingly fragmented public sphere. In Risk society, Beck (1986) argued for the growing importance of expert knowledge and a polity based upon the management of risk. The risk society reflects public scepticism about the role of science in relation to contentious public issues, such as nuclear power, genetically modified (GM) crops and the environment. At a political and policy level, there is a perceived need to get publics ‘on side’ in relation to scientific innovation. The science café is therefore implicated in a broader set of policy and political issues than the image of the café as ‘meeting place’ immediately suggests.

Science and society: from communication to deliberation

As the authors of the Scientists on Public Engagement (ScoPE) report (Burchell et al, 2009) note, a ‘sea change’ has occurred over the last three decades in professional scientific culture towards an endorsement of public engagement as an integral part of the production of scientific knowledge. Public engagement is understood here as a means of addressing publicly defined priorities, improving scientific practice and helping to define the questions that scientists might address. Lay publics are included in this model as citizen partners.