Dear all,
This message is doing the rounds:

FIRST CANADIAN CONSENSUS CONFERENCE

The first Citizens' Consensus Conference in Canada will be held on Mar.
5-7 on the subject of food biotechnology.  Modelled after European
consensus conferences, the process is a method of technology assessment
involving  direct participation of ordinary citizens. 

A lay panel of 15 citizens was chosen from volunteers from western
Canada who responded to advertisements in community media and news
features. This first conference utilizes a regional model and is being
implemented for the first time with a focus on the four western
provinces, an element  which recognizes the predominant regional feature
of Canadian politics. The lay panel has attended two preparatory
week-ends in January and February, resulting in a set of key questions
that will be posed to a panel of experts at a 'public hearing' at the
University of Calgary campus in March. The preparatory week-ends were
designed as intensive learning week-ends prior to the public conference,
which will be attended by the general public, the media, policymakers,
and other stakeholder organizations. The citizen panel will announce its
findings on the last day of the conference.  
  
As a process of democratic technology assessment, consensus conferences
have been employed in European countries such as Denmark (the pioneer in
this approach), the Netherlands, France, Germany, Norway,  and the U.K.
It has subsequently been used in Asian countries (South Korea and Japan)
and is also currently in use in Australia (also on food biotechnology).
A pilot consensus conference was sponsored by the Loka Institute in 1997
in Boston. The subjects have been varied (including food irradiation,
nuclear waste disposal) but quite a number have focused on various
aspects of biotechnology.   

More information about consensus conferences and about this specific
conference is available at:

	www.ucalgary.ca/~pubconf/index.html

-- 
--------------
Edna Einsiedel
Graduate Program in Communications
The University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4
Canada
Ph: (403) 220-3924
Fax:(403) 282-6716
------------------------------
Karen John-Pierre
Information Officer
Wellcome Trust
Phone	0171 611 8510 
Fax 	0171 611 8726
k,[log in to unmask]


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