Innovative debates

A Pop Idol-style debating competition for sixth-form and further education college students, provocative online debates organised by Spiked Online, and a series of public debates at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London all helped a variety of public groups to consider the future of biomedical science.

Winstanley College from Wigan won the 2005 'Debating Matters' competition, run by the Institute of Ideas with support from a Wellcome Trust Engaging Science Society Award. The competition brings together students from all backgrounds to debate topical scientific issues. Before announcing their decision, the judges give each student and team Pop Idol-style feedback on their performances and arguments. The competition is being run again in 2005/06, with heats being held across the UK.

With Wellcome Trust support, online publisher Spiked ran a series of web-based debates and public events on topics such as global outbreaks of infectious disease, drugs and health, and complementary medicine. These experiments highlighted the possibilities offered by the web to engage large numbers of people in constructive debate.

The ICA public debates included 'Open Access Science' (January 2005), 'Science and Democracy' (March 2005), which explored how the public can feed into scientific policy making, and 'The Trouble with Boys' (September 2005), examining what can be done about the current educational and emotional underdevelopment of boys. Featuring leading scientists, authors, commentators and politicians, the debates enabled public audiences to get to the heart of some of today's key socioscientific issues.