Offered by: IE/UNICAMP & Delft University of Technology

Responsible professors: Prof. José Maria Ferreira Jardim da Silveira (IE/UNICAMP) and Prof. Patricia Osseweijer (TU Delft & BE-Basic).

Period: January 25 – February 2 (60 hours)

Course objective

The overall course objective is to achieve an understanding of the role and nature of public perceptions and policies in innovation (and tech transfer) for  a circular biobased economy and acquiring skills to be actively engaged in (public and stakeholder) communication, regulatory committees and policy making.

Learning objectives

After successful examination of the course, students will be able to:

• have a basic understanding of ethics and its importance to attitudes
• have a basic understanding of the role and function of policies, regulatory committees and governance (global and international)
• have an understanding of issues in public perceptions related to a Circular Biobased Economy
• explain and discuss ethical and social issues in novel technologies (incl media training)
• make a company strategic communication plan
• address challenging (public) perception issues

Course program

The course will be provided as a ‘summer’ course at Unicamp. In addition to lecturers from Unicamp and TU Delft, invited (international) experts from industry, academia and  other organisations will provide insight in their work in dealing with regulation, policy making or communication. Student groups will develop a strategic communication plan for a (small) company in novel technology. The  Plan will be presented to an expert jury. Student groups will be supported by staff from Unicamp and TU Delft. Two intermediate presentations are planned to monitor progress and provide feed-back to students.

Examination

The strategic communication plan and presentation will both be assessed by the course professors and marked using the usual Unicamp system.

Course material

There will be a digital reader “Strategic communication and Policy for BBE”, produced by UNICAMP; TU Delft. Recommended reading: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/life-sciences/life-science-professional-development/successful-science-communication-telling-it-it

Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511760228

Course schedule

Thursday 25 January: Day 1

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 10:30	General introduction on Energy Transition Introduction of participants and expectations;- introduction of course aims; why is public perception and ethics important?	Jose Maria da Silveira
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30	Energy transition and circularity	Jose Maria da Silveira
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 - 15:00	Stakeholder engagement	Gabriela Benatti
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00	Stakeholder engagement and productive inclusion	Gabriela Benatti

Friday 26 January: Day 2

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 10:30	General introduction to Policy analysis	Jose Maria da Silveira
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30	Policy analysis	Jose Maria da Silveira
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 - 15:00	Policentric governance	Jose Maria da Silveira
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee break
15:30 – 17:00	Policentric governance and Circular Bioeconomy	Jose Maria da Silveira

Monday 29 January: Day 3 - Introduction to ethics and assignment

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 10:30	General introduction Introduction of participants and expectations;- introduction of course aims; why is public perception and ethics important?	Jose Maria da Silveira and Patricia Osseweijer
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 12:30	A basic introduction to ethics The basis of how to decide what is ‘good’ and what is not	Laurens Landeweerd
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 - 15:00	Ethical issues in a biobased economy and its relation to communication Theory versus practice, responsible entrepeneurship, regulations, governance, committees, how to deal with fake news	Laurens Landeweerd
15:00 – 15:30	Coffee break
15:30 – 16:30	Exercises and introduction campaign planning Exercises and Introduction Group work: making a company strategic communication plan	Laurens Landeweerd and Patricia Osseweijer
16:30 - 17:30	Group work: business and communication plan

Tuesday 30 January: Day 4  -

Biobased Economy: Innovation dynamics and IP, Polices and Regulatory Issues,  Risk assessment and perceptions, Technology transfer (Jose Maria da Silveira) 

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 10:45	An overview on Biobased energy: scope, opportunities and comparison with other alternative sources: Biofuels and the Technology Frontier (1) ; Dynamics of innovation in biobased: an assessment based on patent networks (2) for   a) GMO technologies; b) Saccharification and 2G technologies; c) Waste	Jose Maria da Silveira
10:45 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 – 12:00	Biobased energy continued	Jose Maria da Silveira
12:00- 13:00	Lunch
13:00 - 14:00	Sustainability assessment: impact analysis	John Posada
14:00 – 15:00	Sustainability in innovation: social sustainability	John Posada
15:00– 15:15	Coffee Break
15:15 - 17:30	Group work: business and communication plan

Wednesday 31 January: Day 5 -

Media training and Public Perceptions of biobased economy

Who are the stake holders?; - survey results of opinions; facts versus opinions; food-fuel debate;   what are the issues? how do the media show this? what are the economical consequences?

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 10:00	Introduction to importance perceptions and media relations	Patricia Osseweijer with Laurens Landeweerd
10:00– 10:30	How do the media work? newspapers, journals, radio and TV;  who are the gate keepers?  timing of information and press releases;  debates, lectures and interview techniques;  training in written and oral communication Press conference simulation	Patricia Osseweijer, Laurens Landeweerd
10:45 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00- 12:30	Writing about science for non-scientists	Patricia Osseweijer, Laurens Landeweerd
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 15:00	Oral communication, radio and TV: interviews and presentations	Patricia Osseweijer, Laurens Landeweerd
15:00– 15:15	Coffee Break
15:15 - 17:00	Exercises: talks Presentation TASK I

Thursday 1 February: Day 6

Communication strategies

Evaluation of various communication approaches and their effectiveness;  case studies on good and bad examples;  what can companies learn from this?  what is the role of scientists?

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 09:45	Communication strategy: an industry view from Braskem – stakeholder perspectives
09:45 – 10:00	Coffee break
10:00 - 10:45	Communication strategy: an industry view from Inocas/Unica
10:45- 11:30	Communication strategy: an NGO view: XXX	Carlos Young
11:30 - 12:15	Communication strategy: what we learned from national vaccination for COVID
12:15 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 14:30	Communication strategy: an R&D view from EMBRAPA	Silvia Massruha
14:30– 17:00	Communication Strategic Plan: group work
17:00	Nasty situations given to groups (by email)	Patricia Osseweijer

Friday 2 February: Day 7

Overall integral Business Plan Presentations to panel

Time	Activities	Participants
09:00 – 12:30	Group work
12:30 - 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 16:00	Group presentations to panel of experts (Jury)
16:00 - 16:15	Panel review (Panel of experts) Panel (to be confirmed): Patricia Osseweijer(TUD); Laurens Landeweerd (RU); Jose Maria da Silveira (UNICAMP); John Posada (TU Delft) Gustavo Valenca Paim (UNICAMP)
16:15 - 16:30	Course evaluation Announcement of winner
16:30 - 18:00	Drinks and departure

Reading:

• Main Reading: HPLE REPORT 5 (2013) Biofuels and Food Security: a report of High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Cap 2. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-5_Biofuels_and_food_security.pdf
  Complementary reading: Brown, R.C. and Brown, T. Why are we Producing biofuels. Cap 6 to cap 11.
• Reading Material: slides based on Silveira et Alli. (2013); DAL-POZ et alli (2011), DAL-POZ et alli (2014).
  Complementary reading: Silveira et Alli (2013); DAL-POZ et alli(2011); DAL-POZ et alli (2014)
• Main Reading: HPLE REPORT 5 (2013) Biofuels and Food Security: a report of High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Cap 1. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-5_Biofuels_and_food_security.pdf
• Main Reading: Borges; Silveira & Ojima (2010), Constraints and Incentives for agricultural Biotechnology in Brazil. http://www.anpec.org.br/revista/vol10/vol10n4p741_763.pdf
  Presentation of a study: Rausser, G. and Zi, H. (2013) Policy Pathways to a viable renewable energy sector. In 6th annual Berkeley Bioeconomy.
  http://www.berkeleybioeconomy.com/conference/2013-conference/
• Main Reading: Slovic, P (1987). Perception of Risk, vol. 236. N0 4799 PP. 280-285 .American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable.
• Sjöberg, L.(2004) Principles of risk perception applied to gene technology. Science and Society, Special Issue.EMBO reports VOL 5 | SPECIAL ISSUE | 2004
  Sjöberg, L. (2004). Explaining Individual Risk Perception: The Case of Nuclear Waste Lennart. Risk Management: An International Journal 2004, 6 (1), 51-64

Slides based on Borges; Silveira & Ojima (2010), Constraints and Incentives for agricultural Biotechnology in Brazil. http://www.anpec.org.br/revista/vol10/vol10n4p741_763.pdf