The Rise of Public Engagement in Japan and the UK: Reconsidering Conventional Narratives through a Cross-country Dialogue

This paper juxtaposes major historical developments in public engagement in Japan and the UK to unsettle the idea that the UK experience of how “publics” have been accounted for in science policy might be taken as a common or representative story. In comparison to the UK and European moves “from deficit to dialogue,” recent events in Japan are much less well-known internationally, and do not follow the same pattern. Rather than being either “ahead” or “behind,” Japan's experience has connected similar concepts or approaches in different ways. We highlight these contrasts to challenge and open up dominant Western narratives, to create space for considering how movements for public engagement with science—or what has been called “the participatory turn”—may unfold in different ways across different contexts. Simultaneously, we point to idiosyncrasies in the UK experience that may not always be observed as such. In so doing, we demonstrate that connections—or, as it may be, the absence of connections—between public engagement, science policy, and social responsibility cannot be taken for granted and must be addressed in specific contexts.