Interview Marie Preau

Marie Preau is Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Reshape laboratory, Marie Préau has been serving as a project manager for scientific strategy in the field of health since September 2022.

1. In what framework/project have you worked with elected officials / political representatives?

In public health, we inevitably have links with politicians.

Several experiences. My first experience with politicians was as a researcher within the National AIDS Council (CNS), which is a national body whose members are appointed by the Prime Minister or even the President. This body brings together experts, researchers as well as individuals from civil society, representatives of societies of thought, such as religious faiths or Freemasonry. It was interesting because the CNS either took up topics on its own initiative to work on referrals, or was referred to by the Ministry of Health on matters such as the management of HIV among migrants, medicalized prevention, etc. There were also political sociologists like Alain Touraine; it was interesting to have their perspective, combined with those of citizens, experts, associations, and family representatives.

It wasn’t the elected officials who directly introduced the topics; we collectively chose a referral on a subject. We didn’t base our work directly on them, but they contributed by asking their questions. But the nature of the questions is inherently political, such as the medicalized prevention of HIV: Is it acceptable to give a drug to people to protect themselves, like a contraceptive pill? What message should be conveyed to citizens? It is complicated to say that people continue to take sexual risks but that we can give them a treatment that will protect them from it.

Another related question: can this treatment be reimbursed by social security? Afterward, we worked extensively on the issue of the management of migrants because there was a discourse from certain politicians saying that migrant populations were arriving in France to get treated for HIV, etc.

Ethics were involved, and there was also a sensitive side to it.

We had a referral regarding the organization of HIV prevention management in French Guiana. For that, we went there on a 10-day visit to see everything. So, there were really major things at stake. So, that’s an experience that impacts you in how you do research. Personally, I have always held that the researcher is there to provide scientific data to help others, like elected officials, build their advocacy.

So I feel very comfortable with that; our job is to provide data and publication. Publication is a condition for our credibility.

Regarding my experience as scientific co-coordinator or director of the SHAPE-Med@Lyon project – winner in 2022 of the France 2030 “ExcellencES” call for projects, which draws on all the scientific strengths of the Lyon-Saint Etienne site to develop transforming research and training projects in the field of health and well-being – the question of the connection with elected officials was embedded in the project right from the start. This corresponded to the time of the implementation of the local health contract (CLS) where they set up the Scientific Committee. So, I am a member of the Scientific Committee of the CLS. We work very closely with elected officials there. We did a 5-day mission to Barcelona with the DGS (Director General of Services), in the presence of the Director General of Health for the city of Lyon. And it was interesting because we actually went to visit the Barcelona City Hall, which has One Health actions, so they wanted to see how it was organized. And there is a global health institute in Barcelona that was something of a model we were interested in to understand exactly how it worked. We realized that it was not applicable in France given the organization because, among other things, they have private funders like the Spanish bank La Caixa, which would not be possible in France. But it was definitely an interesting experience to see the questions they asked and the questions we asked.

I think we are going to achieve co-constructed projects – genuinely with city stakeholders; I think this is one of the first times to my knowledge.

2. What do you think the conditions for a constructive dialogue between researchers and elected officials are?

In this last experience, there was a firm commitment from both sides: from the researchers’ side and from the city’s side, which wanted to involve academics in the operation of these local contracts to bring credibility to all actions, to validate them scientifically.

In SHAPE-Med, we had declared that we wanted to work with local institutions and that we wanted this partnership. We persisted: we had the elected officials and directors come to the SHAPE workshops. And we didn’t give up, even if we were discouraged at times. But progress was made. Now we do joint presentations, researchers and elected officials, as in the Jacques Cartier interviews.

We also organize workshops together, walking lectures/conferences, and conferences in the city park of Lyon.

So, I think the contract, the actions of the local health contract, are truly built on scientific data with researchers, and the topics we develop also stem from field realities. There is one, for instance, on bedbugs. We started from field experience and went looking for expertise in biology, economics, etc. I think we will eventually secure funding for this project.

It works both ways; it’s give and take: it fuels the credibility of the CLS actions, and, conversely, we build projects based on the reality of what is actually happening.

3. Have you had experiences where this collaboration did not work?

The problem is often a matter of time; we don’t know how long this body will last following regular new elections. Sometimes, we wonder how far we should go. The Scientific Committee of the CLS—how long will it exist? Do weknow at what point we are to stop or not, and how?

4. If you had to recommend to colleagues for them to get involved in this type of initiative, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them?

I think you have to ensure that you are not going to work for the politicians but defending a common cause.

Why did it work? Because the common scientific objective is One Health, and, in fact, the elected official was waiting for our results and trusted us. But we weren’t there to defend the policy of the city of Lyon. It’s just that we truly had this common goal and, as a result, mutual recognition of expertise from both sides. I think that is, for me, the key to our collaboration.

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