Knowledge users’ perspectives and advice on how to improve knowledge exchange and mobilization in the case of a co-managed fishery

Environmental scientists have long been frustrated by the difficulties involved in transferring their research findings into policy-making, management, and public spheres. Despite increases in scientific knowledge about social-ecological systems, research has consistently shown that regulators and stakeholders draw on tacit, informal, and experiential knowledge far more than scientific knowledge in their decision-making. Social science research in the fields of knowledge exchange (KE) and knowledge mobilization (KMb) suggest that one of the major barriers to moving knowledge into practice is that scientists fail to align their communication strategies with the information-seeking behaviours and preferences of potential knowledge users. This article presents findings from in-depth qualitative research with government employees and stakeholders involved in co-managing Pacific salmon fisheries in Canada’s Fraser River. We investigate how members of these groups access, view, and use scientific information, finding both similarities and differences. Members of both groups express a strong interest in academic science, and self-report using scientific information regularly in their work and advocacy. However, the two groups engage in different information-seeking behaviours, and provide notably different advice to academic scientists about how to make research and communication more relevant to potential users. For example, government employees focus on the immediate applications of research to known problems, while stakeholders express greater concern for the political context and implications of scientific findings. We argue that scientists need to “go where the users are” in the behavioural and intellectual sense, and tailor their communications and engagement activities to match the habits, preferences, and expectations of multiple potential user groups. We conclude with recommendations on how this may be done.     

Citizen science for policy development: The case of koala management in South Australia

Citizen science involves the engagement of non-scientists in scientific research. Citizen science projects have been reported to be useful in policy development but there is little detail of how projects have contributed. The citizen science project, the Great Koala Count (GKC) collected ecological data about koalas and social data that have been used in the initial stages of the development of a South Australian Government koala management and conservation policy. After the GKC, we conducted an online survey of people who participated in the project and a control group. The survey focussed on opinions towards possible management options for koalas in South Australia. GKC participants were also asked about project-related changes in knowledge and opinions. We received 970 valid surveys and found some differences in opinions between GKC participants and the control group. Therefore, the GKC did not provide a representative sample of the entire South Australian population. However, we contend that the data from the citizen scientists are still valuable for policy development as it has been provided by people who are highly engaged in the topic (koala management in this case). It can be difficult to engage the public in the policy development process, and the citizen science project enabled the collection of a wide range of opinions, helping to discover and define relevant issues. Additionally, many people learnt about koalas and koala-related management issues, and some changed their opinions regarding koala management, also useful outcomes from the project in the policy development context. Our findings suggest that citizen science is useful for policy makers because projects provide the opportunity for dialogue with the people most interested in the topic of the project.     

Climate research and policy advice: scientific and cultural constructions of knowledge

The present paper is a call to cultural sciences for helping climate science to establish a sustainable practice of policy advice concerning man-made climate change.As a climate scientists engaged in communication with stakeholders and the media, mostly in Germany, the author has noticed a notable discrepancy between scientific knowledge about climate change, and the understanding in the public at large, specifically as fostered by the media and some publicly visible climate scientists. In this essay, this discrepancy is analysed to some extent and framed as the presence of two competing types of knowledge, namely a body of knowledge named “cultural construct” and another body of knowledge named “scientific construct” of man-made climate change. The relationship and the dynamics of these two knowledge claims are not well researched. In order to understand the dynamical interaction of the different knowledge claims significant efforts from cultural sciences are needed. Unfortunately, so far these disciplines do not often consider this field. Two examples of useful analyses are presented as examples.     

Pure science or policy involvement? Ambiguous boundary-work for Swedish carbon cycle science

In theory, the interaction between the worlds of environmental science and policy may seem straightforward. From a realm outside politics and power, scientists provide relevant knowledge about nature upon which informed policy decisions could be based. However, in reality this linear model tends to be replaced by a much more complex relationship where the distinction between facts and values, knowledge and interests is less clear cut. In this paper, I explore links between science, policy and power through an interview study conducted with Swedish carbon cycle scientists and government negotiators to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Drawing on a co-production model of science–policy interplay this paper addresses the implications of a mutually constitutive relationship between carbon cycle science and climate policy.     

The influence of science on Canada's foreign policy on persistent organic pollutants (1985–2001)

The role of science in environmental foreign policymaking has received little attention in the international environmental politics literature, and systematic, in-depth case studies of the influence of science on environmental foreign policy with respect to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are entirely missing. We present a case study of the influence of science on Canada's foreign policy on POPs from the discovery of the transboundary nature of the POPs problem around 1985 to the signing of the United Nations Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. Influence was analyzed in terms of a knowledge–action methodology that focused on the types of scientific knowledge and the actions taken by scientists that were influential. Data were collected through interviews and extensive document analysis. We conclude that, while individual knowledge types and actions were influential during various periods (single-factor explanations), it was an increasingly layered and integrated “package” of knowledge types and actions, with human health impacts as its touchstone and partnering between scientists and non-scientists as its watchword, that propelled and sustained Canada's foreign policy on the POPs issue.     

Scientists as policy actors: A study of the language of biofuel research

Theory suggests that the influence of science on policy will be greater when scientific discourse is aligned with the language and meaning of wider social concerns. Seeking to assess whether scientists may be guided by such propositions in a controversial environmental policy arena, we examine the language and content of public-facing, UK scientific research grant abstracts on biofuels for the period 2007–2011, comparing these to stakeholder position statements and newspaper articles of the same period. We find that UK scientists have indeed broadly reflected societal concerns about biofuels during this period. However we also find that both science and society have paid less attention to procedural issues. We comment on the implications of the findings for the role of science in environmental policy development.     

The role of knowledge and research in facilitating social learning among stakeholders in natural resources management in the French Atlantic coastal wetlands

Environmental policy development increasingly refers to procedural approaches where local organisational structures are set up to initiate social interactions, to establish common working methods and to formulate collective agreements. In a context of complexity and uncertainty regarding environmental issues at stake, deliberations are mostly about managing interdependencies, i.e., building agreements and implementing changes so as to reconstruct the links between natural, technical and social phenomena. We see these deliberations as situations where social learning occurs; as an iterative process of knowledge co-production (i.e., of ‘knowing’) among stakeholders brought into interaction. Our research aims at better understanding these processes in the context of French Atlantic coastal wetlands where multi-stakeholder platforms for decision-making have become the dominant process for implementing natural resources management policies. Our studies focus on the challenge of managing the production and application of knowledge in social settings, in which scientists themselves come to play a role. They show how scientific knowledge can acquire heuristic value when used in the context of intervention research, as well as revealing some of the ethical dilemmas this may pose for the role of researcher.     

Negotiating future climates for public policy: a critical assessment of the development of climate scenarios for the UK

Climate scenarios serve a number of functions in helping society manage climate change—pedagogic, motivational or practical (for example, in engineering design, spatial planning and policy development). A variety of methodologies for scenario construction have been experimented with, all of them to a greater or lesser extent depending on the use of climate models. Yet the development of climate scenarios involves much more than climate modelling. The process of scenario development is one of negotiation between relevant stakeholders—funding agencies, policy communities, scientists, social actors and decision-makers in a variety of sectors. This process of negotiation is illustrated through an analysis of four generations of UK climate scenarios—published in 1991, 1996, 1998 and 2002. Using ideas from science and technology studies and the sociology of scientific knowledge to guide our analysis, we reveal complex relationships between the interests of UK science, policy and society. Negotiating climate scenarios involves compromise between the needs of policy, science and decision-maker in relation to, for example, the selection of the development pathway(s) and emissions scenario(s), the choice of climate model(s), the assessment and communication of uncertainty and the presentational devices used. These insights have a significant bearing on the way in which climate scenarios should be viewed and used in public discourse, strategic planning and policy development.     

Understanding the use of science in decision-making on cockle fisheries and gas mining in the Dutch Wadden Sea: Putting the science–policy interface in a wider perspective

The use of science to inform and underpin decision-making on natural resources is not self-evident as stakeholders often use science in a selective and strategic way. Scientific analyses of science utilisation often focus on how the science–policy interface is organised and from this perspective provide recommendations to scientists about how they can increase their contribution to decision-making. Yet in this paper we argue that a wider perspective on the science–policy interface, in particular by analysing the roles and interactions of actors other than those directly involved, provides both additional explanations and new points of application for strategies aimed at enhancing science utilisation. We illustrate our claim by means of an analysis of decision-making on cockle fisheries and gas mining in the Dutch Wadden Sea between the 1990s and 2004. For many years, scientific studies addressing the ecological effects of these activities were not used to meaningfully contribute to decision-making. In 2004 this situation changed radically. Explanations include the role of intermediaries between scientists, stakeholders and decision-makers and new legislation. Scientists could enhance the chances of knowledge utilisation both by creating a more open science–policy interface and by reframing the policy problems at issue.     

Designing a new science-policy communication mechanism for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has lacked an efficient mechanism to access scientific knowledge since entering into force in 1996. In 2011 it decided to convene an Ad Hoc Working Group on Scientific Advice (AGSA) and gave it a unique challenge: to design a new mechanism for science-policy communication based on the best available scientific evidence. This paper outlines the innovative ‘modular mechanism’ which the AGSA proposed to the UNCCD in September 2013, and how it was designed. Framed by the boundary organization model, and an understanding of the emergence of a new multi-scalar and polycentric style of governing, the modular mechanism consists of three modules: a Science-Policy Interface (SPI); an international self-governing and self-organizing Independent Non-Governmental Group of Scientists; and Regional Science and Technology Hubs in each UNCCD region. Now that the UNCCD has established the SPI, it is up to the worldwide scientific community to take the lead in establishing the other two modules. Science-policy communication in other UN environmental conventions could benefit from three generic principles corresponding to the innovations in the three modules—joint management of science-policy interfaces by policy makers and scientists; the production of synthetic assessments of scientific knowledge by autonomous and accountable groups of scientists; and multi-scalar and multi-directional synthesis and reporting of knowledge.     

Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society

Public ecology exists at the interface of science and policy. Public ecology is an approach to environmental inquiry and decision making that does not expect scientific knowledge to be perfect or complete. Rather, public ecology requires that science be produced in collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders in order to construct a body of knowledge that will reflect the pluralist and pragmatic context of its use (decision context), while continuing to maintain the rigor and accountability that earns scientific knowledge its privileged status in contemporary society. As such, public ecology entails both process and content. The process is that of a post-modern scientific method: a process that values the participation of extended peer communities composed of a diversity of research specialists, professional policy-makers, concerned citizens and a variety of other stakeholders. The content of public ecology is a biocultural knowledge of dynamic human ecosystems that directly relates to and results from the participatory, democratic processes that distinguish public ecology as a citizen science. The primary goal of public ecology is to build common ground among competing beliefs and values for the environment. The purpose of this paper is to help unify and establish public ecology as a distinctive approach to environmental science and policy in global society.     

The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science

The funding of scientific research is almost always justified in terms of the potential for achieving beneficial societal outcomes. In pursuing a particular societal outcome, how can we know if one research portfolio is better than another? In this paper we conceptualize: (1) science in terms of a “supply” of knowledge and information, (2) societal outcomes in terms of a “demand” function that seeks to apply knowledge and information to achieve specific societal goals, and (3) science policy decision-making as a process aimed at “reconciling” the dynamic relationship between “supply” and “demand.” The core of our argument is that “better” science portfolios (that is, portfolios viewed as more likely to advance desired societal outcomes, however defined) would be achieved if science policy decisions reflected knowledge about the supply of science, the demand for science, and the relationship between the two. We provide a general method for pursuing such knowledge, using the specific example of climate change science to illustrate how research on science policy could be organized to support improved decisions about the organization of science itself.     

Understanding socio-cultural dimensions of environmental decision-making: A knowledge governance approach

Sociological critiques of scientific research processes and their application have developed nuanced understandings of the social, cultural and political forces shaping relationships between science and decision-making. Simultaneously, environmental researchers have sought to construct more engaged, dynamic modes of conducting research to facilitate the application of science in decision-making and action. To date, however, there are relatively few theoretically-oriented approaches that have been able to draw productive connections between the sociological critique and the practical applications that can aid in navigating this complex and diverse milieu. In this article, we propose that the concept of “knowledge governance” can bring together targeted inquiry into the socio-political context in which environmental science is situated, alongside analysis of specific interventions that change knowledge-to-action relationships. Drawing together Jasanoff’s (2005) concept of civic epistemology with Cash et al.’s (2003) knowledge systems for sustainability approach, this knowledge governance inquiry framework offers an integrative lens through which to critically reflect on knowledge-based processes, and incorporate that deeper understanding into intervention efforts. We briefly illustrate its application with reference to a pilot project examining conservation decision-making in the Western Pacific island nation of Palau.     

Salmon policy: science,society, restoration,and reality

Salmon policy in the Pacific Northwest illustrates a class of contentious, socially wrenching issues that are becoming increasingly common in the western United States as demands increase for limited ecological resources. Many Pacific salmon “stocks” (a term used in fisheries management for a group of interbreeding individuals that is roughly equivalent to “population”) have declined and some have been extirpated. The salmon “problem” is one of the most vexing public policy challenges in natural resource management. Even with complete scientific knowledge — and scientific knowledge is far from complete or certain — it would be a challenging policy problem. The salmon decline issue is often defined simplistically as a watershed management problem, in part because changes in watersheds are highly visible and often occur on public or corporate lands where individuals and organizations often have direct input to decision making. Yet, changes in climate and ocean conditions, for example, occur frequently and such changes have a major influence on salmon abundance. The scientific challenges are great, but the more difficult — and critical — aspect of the debate concerns policies and decisions affecting everyone, including those involved in rural enterprises (especially farming and logging); manufacturing and construction; electricity generation (including hydro, fossil fuel, and nuclear); national defense; urban development; transportation (including road, rail, air, and water). The debate also involves competing personal rights and freedoms; the prerogatives and roles of local, state, and federal government and Indian tribes; policies on human population level, reproduction, emigration, and immigration; and the future of fishing (commercial, recreational, and Indian). The salmon policy conundrum is characterized by: (1) nearly everyone claims to support maintaining wild salmon runs; (2) many competing societal priorities exist, many of which are partially or wholly mutually exclusive; (3) the region’s rapidly growing human population creates increasing pressures on all natural resources (including salmon and their habitats); (4) policy stances in the salmon debate are solidly entrenched; (5) society expects salmon experts to help solve the salmon problem; (6) each of the many sides of the political debate over the future of salmon use salmon experts and scientific “facts” to bolster its argument; (7) it has proved to be nearly impossible for salmon scientists to avoid being categorized as supporting a particular policy position; and (8) many advocates of policy positions couch their positions in scientific terms rather than value-based preferences. Although far from indisputable, I conclude that over the next century and allowing for considerable year-to-year and decade-to-decade variation, many, perhaps most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite of costly protection and restoration efforts.     

Scientists versus policy-makers: Building capacity for productive interactions across boundaries in the urban water sector

This paper critically reflects on a trial process for building the capacity of researchers to influence policy-makers in the urban water sector in Australia. Framed as an action research inquiry, this study brought together multidisciplinary teams of researchers to make policy pitches to simulated panels of current and former politicians, senior bureaucrats and industry representatives. The simulations were analysed with respect to tactics for pitching, methods of communication, use of evidence and participants’ reflections on the experience. Participants effectively used scientific research evidence to support a broad vision of water sensitive cities, but were less effective in articulating risk analyses, assessing economic impacts, and proposing appropriate policy instruments to enable their proposed visions to be operationalised. Dramaturgical analysis highlighted the implications of positioning scientists versus policy-makers, which ‘typecast’ participants in roles that restricted scientists’ ability to credibly argue policy ideas. It is proposed that teams of scientists and policy-makers ‘rehearse’ together to manage expectations, develop arguments that will cut through in policy contexts, and produce ideas that shape and are shaped and improved by the policy context.     

Global knowledge networking for site specific strategies: The International Conference on Biodiversity and Society

The UNESCO/Columbia University International Conference on Biodiversity and Society was held at Columbia University in the city of New York in May 2001. The conference was jointly organized by the UNESCO Ecological Sciences Division and the Columbia Earth Institute of Columbia University, with the goal of identifying a research agenda and methodology providing solid science as a foundation for field engagement that would influence social and political strategies for the long-term stewardship and conservation of culturally and biologically significant sites. The conference brought together leading environmental and social scientists, managers of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, high-level policy-makers from over 20 developed and developing countries, journalists, and leading institutions, including private corporations, environmental NGOs, United Nations agencies, and international lending institutions. The focus was on local level phenomena and responses, as well as on the potential and limitations of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve concept for coordinating biodiversity conservation with human security. The conference was built around a set of nine case studies prepared by teams of policy makers and researchers.     

Reconciling the supply of scientific information with user demands: an analysis of the problem and review of the literature

Policy makers around the world are calling for the production and diffusion of more useful information for environmental decision-making. Ideally, useful information expands alternatives, clarifies choice and enables policy makers to achieve desired outcomes. Decision makers, however, often lack the useful information needed for good decision-making. By concentrating efforts on increasing the supply of scientific information, scientists may not be producing information considered relevant and useful by decision makers, and may simply be producing too much of the wrong kind of information. Users may have specific information needs that go unmet, or may not be aware of the existence of potentially useful information. This paper defines the practical problem of reconciling the supply of scientific information with users’ demands so that scientists produce information that decision makers need and use in policy decisions. Literature from a variety of disciplines and topics is reviewed to: explain the goals of reconciling the supply and demand of scientific information; define what constitutes useful information; explore lessons learned from experience and describe the characteristics and conditioning factors that shaped those experiences; and identify various alternative strategies and processes that forge stronger science policy linkages. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.     

Technical knowledge,discursive spaces and politics at the science–policy interface

This special issue contributes to a better understanding of science–policy interactions in environmental governance, by assembling studies based on interpretative policy analysis. We introduce the theory and use of interpretative approaches in the analysis of science–policy interactions and draw on Stone's Policy Paradox (2002) to demonstrate how policy discourses are constituted by expertise but also by interests and rhetoric. This enables us to show how policy discourses are shaped by, but also shape their environment, especially when they become dominant and suppress alternative discourses and related knowledge claims and governance practices. In particular, we highlight the role of scientific and other technical expertise in the establishment and interpretation of policy discourses in different settings and argue that current environmental policy discourses afford considerable space for science and expertise to calculate the state of the environment, evaluate the sustainability of policies and forge solutions for green economic growth. In the conclusion we underscore the importance of reflexivity on the part of scientists working at the science–policy interface regarding the political choices implicit in the policy discourses they both work within and help to establish.     

Ecological knowledge and North Sea environmental policies

In an analysis of North Sea eutrophication science and policies, focusing on the period 1980–2005, it was investigated how scientific information was used in policy-making. The analysis focused on the central assumptions of the rational policy-making model, i.e. that scientific information can be used to formulate decisions, based upon objective scientific information (rational decision-making), and secondly, can support implementing these decisions (rational management). In general terms, the following was concluded:

• •More knowledge has increased rather than reduced uncertainty;
• •In order to handle the problem of dealing with complexity and uncertainty at the political level, a simplification of facts has occurred, in this case focusing on nutrients as the main cause of the problem, at the same time excluding other possible causes;
• •Both the limited scientific view (i.e. the nutrient view) and the exaggeration of the seriousness of the problem (impacts, scope) have been used as an authoritative basis for the justification of political decisions. Both were not supported by the majority of the scientific community;
• •New scientific knowledge, not in support of existing policies, has been excluded from the policy process;
• •The science–policy interface, mainly consisting of “civil-servant scientists”, that emerged and increased its influence over the period of investigation, has been the central element in the simplification and exclusion process.

The main lesson learned is that work at the interface of science and policy must be subject to democratic principles, i.e. be transparent and involving all parties with a stake in the issue under consideration.