The past twenty years have seen considerable shifts and struggles in 'government science' - that is, in the way the state funds, supports, regulates, conducts and uses scientific and technological activity. Focusing on federal labs and agencies, Strategic Science in the Public Interest explores how these labs have been located within, and often buried by, the larger commercially-focused federal innovation agenda.

G. Bruce Doern and Jeffrey S. Kinder examine four labs whose mandates deal with the Alberta oil sands, environmental technologies, wildlife research, and mining and metals,...