7th Environmental Dialogue: Evidence-Based Decision-Making – Between Knowledge and Values

The buzzword “evidence-based decision-making” has been ubiquitous since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic but also in the areas of climate change, sustainability, plastic pollution, or energy supply for a longer time. The buzzword refers to processes in which the best-possible decisions are made on the basis of available evidence. This way, decisions that are primarily influenced by ideological positions should be avoided as far as possible. Science and its knowledge thus receive more space in social actions and can give us orientation as individuals and as a society. At the same time, more often than ever, we witness public controversy between experts.

So how are we supposed to and how do we want to decide in complex situations, characterised by uncertainties and often also by a lack of knowledge? What role should and can academic knowledge play in this regard? What is considered sufficiently substantiated evidence in science and when is it sufficient to legitimise social decisions? And what role do values play in science and society?

When: 10 May 2022, Admission 18:30, Start: 19:00
Where: Upper cupola hall, Natural History Museum Vienna, main entrance – Maria-Theresien-Platz, 1010 Vienna

Welcome

• Katrin Vohland, Director General of the Natural History Museum Vienna
• Regina Hitzenberger, Vice-Rector for Infrastructure, University of Vienna
• Thilo Hofmann, Director of the Environmental Sciences Research Network at the University of Vienna

Keynote: Evidence Without Certainty: What Are Our Decisions Actually Based On?

• Ulrike Felt, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna

Panel Discussion

• Ulrike Felt – Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Vienna
• Eva Horn – Cultural scholar and Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Vienna
• Petra Schaper Rinkel – Political scientist, innovation researcher, Professor for Science and Technology Studies on Digital Change, Vice-Rector for Digitalisation at the University of Graz
• Michael Wagner – Microbiologist, COVID-19 test strategy expert and Professor of Microbial Ecology at the University of Vienna
• Moderator: Marlene Nowotny, science editor Ö1 radio