By Sheeva Azma
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A must-read for scientists, From Expertise to Impact walks you through the step-by-step process of applying science to achieve policy change.
From Expertise to Impact by Dr. Deborah Stine is a book that can help scientists ensure that the research they are doing has an impact in the so-called “real world.” The book recounts lessons Stine has learned over a lifetime of being an engineer and policy professional, including during her service in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, about how to influence science policy as someone with a science background. Dr. Stine is also founder of the Science and Technology Policy Academy and I chatted with her on the Fancy Comma YouTube in February 2025: check out our conversation here.
Dr. Stine says that the skills involved in making impactful policy change are learned – that’s what she teaches in the book. “Informing and influencing policymakers is not just confined to the scientific elite,” Stine states. After reading this book, Stine says, “You will have the policy mindset that will move you from someone with expertise to someone with impact.”
The book is a good one for scientists who are interested in making their science impactful in policy settings but have no real training, experience, or even knowledge about what that might look like. Dr. Stine starts out defining science and technology policy, and how science, technology, and policy are all related. She differentiates between “science and technology for policy,” which involves using science to make better policies, and policy for “science and technology,” which pertains to policymaking to support science and technology specifically.
One really important aspect of the book is its discussion of policy analysis. You cannot have good policies without analysis, and Dr. Stine unpacks what policy analysis is and how it’s accomplished in an easy-to-understand 10-step process driven by what she calls the 4 E’s: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Equity, and Ease of Political Acceptability. Dr. Stine also walks you through thought exercises at the end of each chapter so that you can apply what you are learning in your own personal scientific context.
The best part about the book is that it is written in a conversational tone. I don’t feel like I have to think too hard to understand this book. It’s a pick-up-and-skim-in-one-sitting kind of book, and it can also be a study-the-details-and-get-into-policy-analysis-for-real kind of book. How you use this amazing knowledge is up to you!
Through my work at Fancy Comma, I’ve met a lot of scientists enthusiastic about using their scientific knowledge to improve the world and I can say that this book is the perfect read for those folks. They may be graduate students wondering how to extend the impacts of their science outside of the lab, or scientists who seek to bring expertise into science policymaking. To those folks, I say: this book is for you!
A must-read for scientists, From Expertise to Impact walks you through the step-by-step process of applying science to achieve policy change. Check out From Expertise to Impact on Amazon. You can also subscribe to Dr. Stine’s free science and technology policy newsletters and other timely updates in the science policy world over on her LinkedIn.
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