Performing Department
Human Ecology
Non Technical Summary
Developments in molecular biology have enhanced the possibility of creating gene drives useful in solving intractable pest control problems in agriculture. This proposal provides the foundation for public engagement by developing information about public attitudes regarding agricultural gene drives, ascertaining the values underlying those attitudes, and analyzing the informal, formal, and legally binding governance structures that provide public engagement opportunities permitting appropriate consideration of these attitudes and values. We will conduct eight virtual focus groups to identify the considerations and values that drive attitudes about gene drives. We will field a nationally representative survey regarding public views of agricultural uses of gene drives and their expectations and preferences regarding the representation of their values within the structures and processes that govern gene drives. We will use an experiment to test hypotheses about the specific attributes of gene drives that best conform to expressed public attitudes and values. Simultaneously, we will analyze the structures and processes governing gene drives and identify best practices for efficient, effective, equitable public engagement. We will convene a culminating workshop to engage regulators, funding and research organizations, and advocates in a facilitated discussion of the findings and issues raised by the project. The results of the project will inform researchers, funding organizations and decision makers about public views of the different attributes and proposed uses of gene drive technology within agriculture, will inform best practices for public engagement, and will inform gene drive co-development processes to ensure that they directly reflect public values and attitudes.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
25%
Applied
50%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this project is to provide the foundation for public engagement by developing information about public attitudes regarding agricultural gene drives, ascertaining the values underlying those attitudes, and analyzing the informal, formal, and legally binding governance structures that provide public engagement opportunities permitting appropriate consideration of these attitudes and values.ObjectivesObjective 1: Gain a baseline understanding of the parameters of public acceptance of applications of gene drives to suppress or eradicate agricultural pests.For gene drives to be implemented, public engagement prior to and during the development of these technologies will inform developers by providing understanding on how personal values impact public perceptions of gene drives. Part of the challenge around implementation of GE crops, even 25 years later, has been that the technology was released without engaging the public throughout the development process. Public engagement in a co-development process might have informed both development choices and subsequent communications related to the technology.Objective 1a: Develop baseline information concerning public awareness, knowledge, and engagement with gene drives and their potential applications.Objective 1b: Characterize public awareness, knowledge, and engagement with agricultural pest problems likely to be the target of future gene drives.Objective 1c: Evaluate baseline attitudes, values, perceived risks and benefits, ethical and societal concerns, and the acceptability of gene drives as a technology in general.Objective 1d: Explore public expectations and preferences regarding the representation of their values and attitudes within the structures and processes that govern gene drives.Objective 2: Test hypotheses about the specific attributes of gene drive applications to control agricultural pests that best conform to expressed public attitudes and values.Our previous work has demonstrated that public understanding, perceptions, and acceptance of genetic engineering in general is quite different from that associated with specific applications of that technology. Overall, support for the technology in the abstract is quite low in the US, but support for specific applications of that technology is often quite high, even among members of the public who express little support for the technology in general. Similarly, it is likely that public understanding, perceptions, and acceptance of the gene drive technology is likely to be different from that associated with specific proposed applications. Discovering what specific attributes of gene drive applications matter most to the public can guide their co-development.Objective 2a: Examine attitudes, perceived risks and benefits, ethical and societal concerns, and the acceptability of the use of gene drives involving the suppression or eradication of specific plant, insect, or animal pests to solve specific agronomic, health, or environmental problems.Objective 2b: Identify the characteristics of the technology, target pests, crops, and mitigation strategies that influence public perceptions of the acceptability of specific gene drive applications designed to control agricultural pests.Objective 3: Analyze gene drive governance structures and processes and the relationship between values and public engagement strategiesThis analysis of informal, formal, and legally binding governance regimes for gene drives will contribute information to design more effective processes, by assessing the values addressed in the public engagement processes each regime affords. One of several reasons that public engagement in governance has not worked well for past innovations is that governance is actually dispersed among stakeholders (scientists, their institutions, funders, farmers' associations, participants in the commercial production of products, and, eventually, government regulators). Not only does public participation come too late in the process to be meaningful or useful, but the values that inform stakeholders' decisions are sometimes in tension with public values. Professional norms and institutional mandates prioritize technical reason as a value for stakeholder groups (scientists and funders) involved in the development of new technologies. The general public may be expected to prioritize some values that overlap and other values that conflict with these.Objective 3a: Collect and perform doctrinal analysis on gene drive governance instruments, including statutes, regulations, and policies from the U.S. Government as well as from key states.Objective 3b: Collect and analyze "soft law" - non-binding norms and practices - participation measures for gene drives and other novel technologies with similar characteristics, including scientific bodies' self-governance instruments, codes of ethics, and industry guidelines.Objective 3c: Analyze governance instruments according to the following factors: entity responsible; government or non-government source; scale (i.e., local, state, federal, inter- or transnational); legally binding or not; specific to gene drive or not; values stated in instrument.Objective 3d: Survey and analyze commentary on gene drive-associated values; critiques of public participation measures for innovative technologies; and proposed alternative strategies.Objective 3e: Synthesize the information to identify associations between stages of gene drive development, values expressed, and public engagement measures in place or proposed.Objective 3f: Identify best practices for efficient, effective, equitable public engagement.Objective 4: Engage policy makers, regulators, advocates and funding and research organizations in dialogue about the findings and issues raised by the project.The findings generated by the project are expected to be of considerable use to researchers, funding organizations and decision makers. Information about public views of the different attributes and proposed uses of gene drive technology within agriculture can help guide gene drive co-development processes to ensure that they directly reflect public values and attitudes. The analysis of governance structures that provide public engagement opportunities permitting appropriate consideration of these attitudes and values, can also inform best practices.Objective 4a: Convene an expert workshop to present and discuss the results of the focus groups, public survey, experiment, and analysis of governance to relevant stakeholders, including scientists from regulatory agencies, agricultural research agencies, funding agencies, and developers.Objective 4b: Host a facilitated discussion with experts to connect how public values and attitudes on gene drive can inform the co-development process.Objective 4c: Develop guidance for co-development of gene drives that address not only delivery of science-based evidence on the risks and benefits of gene drives but addresses value-based decisions related to the public acceptance of the new technology.
Project Methods
Virtual Focus GroupsTen-member virtual focus groups (n = 8) will be conducted in eight geographic locations to explore public attitudes regarding gene drives for agriculture. Participants will be drawn from an online panel maintained by YouGov. Focus groups will be divided between urban and rural residents, to capture variations in the values and priorities of these populations related to agricultural technology use.A discussion guide will be developed with questions to stimulate discussion around selected hypothetical case studies involving the application of gene drives to control an agricultural pest. Three case studies describing hypothetical gene drive organisms for use in controlling pests in agriculture will be developed. These case studies each have unique features that will require the participants to consider: a gene drive organism that will persist in the environment, whether to eliminate an invasive pest that threatens hardwood forestry, and a situation where the target of the technology would move across state borders, requiring governance of interstate movement.The facilitated discussion will provide key insights into how particular values influence public perceptions of the risks and benefits of using gene drives to manage agricultural pests. The focus groups will explore the hypothesis that values such as favorable views of organic production and a desire to limit environmental impact from agriculture will influence how the public weighs risks and rewards. The virtual nature of the focus groups allows the focus groups to be easily recorded and transcribed. The responses to the facilitated discussion questions will be used to assess views concerning the acceptability of gene drives and what salient factors play a role in these attitudes.National SurveyA quantitative survey will test hypotheses derived from the qualitative research produced from the focus groups, the results of the review of the governance literature, and from the existing literature regarding the relationship between risk perceptions, social trust, and perceptions of benefit associated with the use of gene drive and attitudes regarding acceptability of a gene drive. A nationally representative survey of 2000 American adults drawn from an online panel maintained by YouGov will be conducted. It will explore how people are likely to view agriculture-related gene drives, given limited knowledge about this emerging technology.This study will explore salient initial impressions, concerns, and reactions to both realistic and futuristic applications of gene drives involving the suppression or eradication of specific pests to solve particular agronomic, health, or environmental problems in the agriculture sector. It will build upon previous work that characterizes public awareness, knowledge, and engagement with agricultural pest problems. It will also build on our previous work and will test the hypothesis that underlying values associated with making specific food choices, such as organic or GMO-free, will have a similar impact on public perceptions of the risk and benefits of gene drives to manage agricultural pests. The results of this study will also provide baseline information about public knowledge of, attitudes toward, and the characteristics of the gene drives and their applications that influence public perceptions of their acceptability within the agricultural sector. Finally, it will also characterize public expectations and preferences regarding how their values and attitudes can best be represented within the structures and processes that govern gene drives.Online ExperimentAn online experiment will be conducted that will build on the results of both the focus groups and the national survey. It will engage 1200 participants drawn from the YouGov panel in a set of online factorial experiments to examine the characteristics of agricultural gene drive applications that influence public understanding, concerns, and perceptions of their acceptability. The study will use a combination of psychometric measures and choice modeling architecture to evaluate the likely parameters of acceptance about future applications of gene drives within agriculture. It will build on previous work that suggests that increased public awareness about the negative impacts of targeted species increases public support for actions taken to manage the pests.The study will also examine the impacts of the characteristics of the technology itself on public perceptions of the acceptability of the use of a specific gene drive application. These will include its projected effectiveness in suppressing or eradicating a specific agricultural pest; characteristics of the pests to which the gene drive would be applied; characteristics of the agricultural crops that would benefit through the application of gene drives to suppress or eradicate pests; and the mitigation strategies designed to terminate a gene drive after a fixed number of generations. This information will be useful for the purpose of co-development of gene drive applications designed to address specific agricultural pest problems.Analysis of Gene Drive GovernanceAn analysis of existing and potential governance structures, processes and practices will be conducted, including appropriate opportunities for public engagement. Existing statutes, regulations, and policies at the Federal and State levels will be examined, as will the practices advocated by scientific bodies, industry organizations, and environmental advocacy organizations. The study will also examine the potentially relevant vehicles for governing other novel technologies with potentially similar transboundary effects (such as geoengineering) and will identify recommended best practices for public engagement involving these complex issues.Governance WorkshopA workshop will be convened that will communicate the survey results to an audience of regulators, funding organizations and agricultural research organizations. The intent is to foster a discussion among these stakeholders that will help them apply this new knowledge to inform their decision-making and facilitate responsible innovation and co-development processes for the use of gene drives in agriculture. The workshop will have a facilitated discussion on how the current governance could mitigate the risk of gene drives and how this could be effectively communicated to the public. Participants will also be invited to engage in a discussion of the strengths and challenges associated with governance of the development and use of gene drives intended to benefit agriculture in the current regulatory environment, as described under the Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology. These discussions will inform a peer-reviewed analysis of the opportunities and challenges for governance of gene drives that will identify policy needs and priorities in order to ensure that gene drive governance is compatible with public values and expectations. The Investigators have a long history of hosting tripartite engagements of experts of government, industry, and academia to consider governance of biotechnology. The analysis of the governance structures, combined with the Investigators' expertise public perception of biotechnology will strengthen the workshop and facilitated discussion with the experts.The proposed workshop will involve approximately 50 participants, representing research and regulatory agencies within the U.S. federal government, as well as funding organizations that support technology development. Additional participants will be identified from agricultural commodity groups and trade associations with an interest in agricultural technologies.