Citizen and stakeholder engagement is frequently portrayed as vital for socially accountable science policy but there is a growing understanding of how institutional dynamics shape engagement exercises in ways that prevent them from realising their full potential. Limited attention has been devoted to developing the means to expose institutional features, allow policy-makers to reflect on how they will shape engagement and respond appropriately. Here, therefore, we develop and test a methodological framework to facilitate pre-engagement institutional reflexivity with one of the United Kingdom’s eminent science organisations as it grappled with a new, high-profile and politicised technology, genome editing. We show how this approach allowed policy-makers to reflect on their institutional position and enrich decision-making at a time when they faced pressure to legitimate decisions with engagement. Further descriptions of such pre-engagement institutional reflexivity are needed to better bridge theory and practice in the social studies of science.

公民和利益相关者的参与经常被描述为对社会负责的科学政策至关重要，但人们越来越了解制度动态如何影响参与活动，从而阻止他们充分发挥潜力。人们对开发揭露制度特征、让政策制定者反思如何塑造参与并做出适当反应的手段的关注有限。因此，我们在这里开发并测试了一个方法框架，以促进与英国著名科学组织之一的合作前机构反思，因为该组织正在努力应对一种新的、备受瞩目的政治化技术——基因组编辑。我们展示了这种方法如何让政策制定者在面临做出合法决策的压力时反思其机构地位并丰富决策。需要对这种参与前的制度反思进行进一步描述，以更好地连接科学社会研究的理论和实践。