ABSTRACT
While in science policy-making, openness to entities other than the conventional ones remains at an embryonic stage, developments in other fields of science-based public policy have gone farther. Environmental and consumer risk policy and management are in that respect paradigmatic. The Action Plan lists a number of actions to be taken by the European Commission. But it also admits that, in European research policy, 'systematic and structured participation has most recently centred on expert advisory groups'. The initiatives launched by the European Union within the framework of its research policy to address science–society relationships provide a starting point for discussing new forms of governance of science and innovation. Public participation beyond the framework of political and representative democracy has been shaped by environmental policies and debates. Intellectual property rights account to a great extent for the power of business enterprises to maintain their control over knowledge production and diffusion.
