Cosmos Magazine Q&A with John Dryzek & Dianne Nicol

Professor John Dryzek and Professor Dianne Nicol are featured in Cosmos Magazine Q&A - How far with genome editing? Maybe we should let the people decide.

Professor John Dryzek, Head of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra, and Professor Dianne Nicol, Head of the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania are featured in Cosmos Magazine's Q&A - How far with genome editing? Maybe we should let the people decide.

This is an international effort and work already is under way to bring it to fruition. How did it come about and what stage are things at?

The idea of a deliberative global citizens’ assembly was first proposed in a 2011 Global Policy article John wrote with André Bächtiger, and Karolina Milewicz.

The idea of doing the first one on genome editing crystallised a couple of years ago when Sonya Pemberton of Genepool Productions contacted the Canberra group and Dianne with the idea of a documentary series that would both inform and cover the assembly. Since then we have assembled an international consortium, and Missions Publiques has come on board as a key organisational partner.

National deliberative processes are at various stages of organisation in Brazil, China, the US, the UK, Australia and elsewhere. We have some funding from the Australian Research Council mainly in order to research the role of documentary film in association with a global assembly, but we need substantially more funding to make a full-scale version of the assembly happen. We hope the Science article will help build momentum.

To read the full article in Cosmos Magazine please visit.