Four Roles, Five Researchers: A Role-Playing Exercise on Scientific Advice

Key features in a nutshell

• Whether and how scientists should make policy recommendations is a contested issue; this exercise puts participants in the shoes of researchers who must decide whether to respond to a request from policymakers; it builds on the four ideal-typical roles put forward in Roger Pielke book, The Honest Broker
• The scenario appears simple at first glance, but it proves to be genuinely sophisticated once participants discuss the various options in small groups – positions that initially seem clear-cut often turn out to be harder to defend than expected
• The exercise takes about 30-60 minutes; it can be integrated into training on science for policy and is especially suited to workshops bringing together participants from different academic disciplines

How does the format work?

Step 1 (5–10 minutes): The workshop facilitator introduces the following scenario: participants are researchers and members of an interdisciplinary research group on healthy nutrition. The research group receives a request from the mayor’s office and must decide whether to accept it. The facilitator shares the scenario description, either as printed copies or electronically, and divides participants into groups of 3–5 people.

Step 2 (15–5 minutes): Each group discusses the following questions:

• Which researcher’s position do you find most convincing, and why?
• Would you accept the request from the mayor’s office? What conditions, if any, would you set? While the scenario appears to be quite simple, it turns out to be sophisticated once the participants discuss the various options in small groups; ask at least one person per group to take notes of the discussion and present the answers of the groups in the following plenary session
• Which positions correspond to Roger Pielke’s typology?

Using a second worksheet, groups then match Pielke’s four roles to the five researchers in the scenario by drawing connecting lines. Definitions of all four roles are provided directly on the accompanying worksheet, so no prior familiarity with Pielke’s book is required. Importantly, the matching is not one-to-one: a single role can apply to more than one researcher, and a researcher’s position can reflect more than one role. Groups note down a brief justification for each match. This task tends to generate the liveliest discussions since several researcher positions resist a clean fit.

Ask at least one person per group to take notes so the group’s discussion can be presented in the following plenary session.

Step 3 (10–25 minutes):

• Convene all participants in plenary and ask whether they would accept the request from the mayor’s office – by show of hands or using an anonymous digital polling tool, which tends to allow more candid responses on a contested question like this one
• Ask one group to share its responses with the others; ask the remaining groups to add any aspects not yet covered
• Ask groups which match in the matching exercise was most difficult to agree on and why; This question often reveals more about the four roles than the matching exercise itself, since it forces participants to articulate exactly where a researcher’s position becomes ambiguous.

Tasks and resources: Brief description of the tasks and resources needed by scientists, knowledge exchange officers/research managers and policymakers

Workshop facilitators

The facilitator prepares a slide explaining the exercise. They provide printed or electronic copies of both worksheets — the scenario and the matching exercise — divide participants into groups, keep time during the group discussion, and moderate the concluding plenary session.

Researchers or research managers as participants

Researchers or research managers take part in the group discussion and connect the positions of the researchers in the scenario to Pielke’s four roles, noting their reasoning for each match. One member per group presents the group’s findings; other members are welcome to add their own perspectives during the plenary discussion.

Policymakers

If policymakers take part in the workshop, they are invited to share their perspective on the request and on the conditions proposed by the groups — including whether such conditions would be realistic or acceptable from their point of view. They can also speak to their expectations regarding scientific expertise more broadly.

The worksheets are available here (@Jannen: bitte die Datei V_ov_fourrolesfivereearchers_worksheet als Word Dokument hier verlinken)

Sources and further reading

Pielke, Roger (2007), The Honest Broker. Making Sense of Science and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

See contributions on the following issues as well

V_ov_fourrolefiveresearchers_worksheet_rmu_20260730

Do you want to know more about the policy engagement toolkit?

Do you want to share your experience in policy engagement? Do you think about contributing to the policy engagement toolkit? Feel free to contact Tome Sandevski via science-policy@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de