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Most analyses of these events have been conducted by researchers and practitioners closely involved with the organisation and promotion of consensus conferences, and has focused essentially on practical considerations (eg Joss and Durant, 1995). Critics have focused on two dimensions: the link with policy making and the legitimacy of different kinds of knowledge. For example Purdue, is his analysis of the UK consensus conference on plant biotechnology held in 1994, raised the following crucial questions:“Who is consulted? Who participates? Who decides who is consulted and who participates? Who decides what the issues are that people shall be consulted on? What counts as relevant knowledge and expertise? Is anyone obligated to pay attention to the consultation, or is the simple process of staging a consultation considered sufficient?”(Purdue, 1995: 170). Purdue and others have argued that the model itself, and certainly the way in which it was applied in the UK, reinforces the distinction between “expert” and “lay” knowledge (Barns, 1995; Fixal, 1997; Levidow, 1998; Purdue, 1995 and 1996). These authors conclude that, in contradiction with the stated aims of the procedure, consensus conferences tend to de-legitimatise nonscientific discourse. The model is promoted in Denmark as a method to open up the decision process to a greater variety of world-views. Critics, on the other hand, argue that consensus conferences have been used to promote a sciencebased definition of the decisions at stake in the wider social sphere, especially when the Danish protocol has been exported unaltered to other societal contexts. Levidow (1998 …