ABSTRACT
Imagining the future plays an essential role in science. Scientific imaginaries are not only the stuff of grant-writing, press releases or strategic planning, but are also ways of aligning research with contemporary culture. This chapter is concerned with the imaginaries of scientists working at the Centre. It seeks to understand how scientists justify their styles of reasoning through prospective visions of therapeutic hope by examining the intersection of culture and psychiatric genetics. The chapter reflects on the relationship between Big Biology and public engagement, and the role social science plays in this accord. Publics are increasingly well-informed about psychiatric disorders and research, though there remains strong hostility from some service users and providers towards a biomedical model. ‘Public engagement’ is a stock phrase used to describe a constellation of activities and initiatives in which science and ‘the public’ enter constructive or deliberative dialogue.
