Use of Joint Fact Finding in Science Intensive Policy Disputes, Part II
This MIT graduate seminar is the second half of a year-long course on Joint Fact Finding in science-intensive disputes. Building on case analysis from the first half, students turn to an active dispute: the Cape Wind project, a proposal to place a wind farm in waters near Nantucket. Coursework centers on gathering and organizing technical information to support a collaborative fact-finding process involving federal and state agencies, academic institutions, and non-profits. Materials include readings, case studies, and project assignments made available through MIT OpenCourseWare, with no enrollment fee and no certificate offered. The course treats fact-finding as a practical skill for resolving conflicts where scientific uncertainty and competing stakeholder interests collide, rather than as an abstract policy topic, and asks students to apply methods learned in the seminar's first half to a live, unresolved planning dispute.