Engaging publics on gene editing of farm animals: Evidence from the online gray literature

Researchers are using diverse strategies to engage publics on what they think about emerging biotechnologies in agriculture, like gene editing applications for farm animals. As anyone can now access gray literature when seeking information on the Internet, we reviewed online gray literature as a dataset to understand public engagement strategies. We found 34 documents through our online search and expert consultation, and categorized documents based on the engagement strategy used: consulting, informing, or marketing. We then discussed how publics were involved in these strategies, analyzing the approaches across the theoretical frameworks of Social License to Operate, Responsible Research and Innovation, and Deliberative Democracy. Reviewing the gray literature offers a unique perspective into how organizations seek to influence public debates about gene editing. Individual sources within gray literature often presented a combination of engagement strategies based on the entity’s objectives. Our findings suggest that informing and marketing are the most common strategies because of the goal to influence policy and governance. We conclude that the gray literature can be used to document how organizations seek to engage various publics about gene editing applications, suggesting this largely underutilized dataset might offer a means of bridging policy and academic debates about the issue.