The challenge of knowledge exchange in national policy impact assessment – A case of Finnish climate policy

Impact assessment (IA) is one of the most widely applied instruments for generating policy-relevant knowledge. However, the step-wise process, logic of linear knowledge transfer and influence of IA has frequently been criticised. Current IA procedures do not adequately address complex and unpredictable policy processes, such as the preparation of climate policies. Drawing on a framework of science–policy interface problems, we analyse knowledge exchange in a national climate policy IA case and discuss the reasons for the problems. We demonstrate various problems in knowledge use and production as well as in the balance between the demand for and supply of knowledge, such as ignoring the knowledge involved in the policy process, the monopoly held by certain knowledge providers and models, insufficient scoping and framing of the IA, poor interaction with knowledge providers and users, and inadequate planning and coordination of the process. We highlight the need for adding context-sensitive and tailored knowledge exchange practices to IA processes to enhance the use of existing knowledge in climate policy.     

Using adaptive governance to rethink the way science supports Australian drought policy

In this paper we show how ideas from a longstanding but little recognised literature on adaptive governance can be used to rethink the way science supports Australian drought policy. We compare and contrast alternative ways of using science to support policy in order to critique traditional commentary on Australian drought policy. We find that criticism from narrow disciplinary and institutional perspectives has provided few practical options for policy makers managing these complex and interacting goals. In contrast, ideas from a longstanding but little recognised literature on adaptive governance have potential to create innovative policy options for addressing the multiple interacting goals of Australian drought policy.From an adaptive governance perspective, the deep concern held by Australian society for rural communities affected by drought can be viewed as a common property resource that can be sustainably managed by governments in cooperation with rural communities. Managing drought assistance as a common property resource can be facilitated through nested and polycentric systems of governance similar to those that have already evolved in other arenas of natural resource management in Australia, such as Landcare groups and Catchment Management Authorities. Essential to delivering these options is the creation of flexible, regionally distributed scientific support for drought policy capable of integrating local knowledge and informing the livelihood outcomes of critical importance to governments and rural communities.     

Public acceptability towards environmental policy measures: Value-matching appeals

People’s acceptability of environmental policy measures is vital for a successful implementation. Identifying how information concerning radical policy measures can be improved may increase support and generate more positive attitudes towards the policy. The effect of tailored information on acceptability towards implementing a proposed congestion charge was investigated by matching ecocentric arguments to biospherically value-oriented participants, and anthropocentric arguments to those who endorsed egoistic values. 627 respondents living in two small Swedish cities participated via a web-based survey. The results show that the single arguments (anthropocentric or ecocentric appeals) were evaluated more favourably than the combination of arguments (including both anthropocentric and ecocentric appeals). Strong biospheric and strong egoistic values were associated with positive and negative evaluations of the policy proposal, respectively. Finally, while respondents who endorsed egoistic values tended to be more positive towards the proposal after reading anthropocentric arguments (value match) than after reading pro-environmental arguments (value mismatch), the opposite effect was observed for respondents who did not endorse egoistic values. Our results suggest that tailoring information with regard to people’s values would be effective in promoting positive attitudes towards important policy measures.     

Understanding the North–South knowledge divide and its implications for policy: a quantitative analysis of the generation of scientific knowledge in the environmental sciences

The paper investigates the scientific knowledge divide in the environmental sciences between developed and developing countries and explores the implications and impacts on both science and policymaking. Quantitative data analysis of more than 6400 scientific papers published in 1993–2003 yield evidence for a growing divide in authorship, publication rates, and location of scientific research in nine environmental journals with high impact factor ratings. In addition to this severe imbalance in publication rates between developed and developing countries, we also find a research bias toward certain eco-climatic zones. More than 80% of papers are published in and about temperate and cold eco-climatic zones. Only 13% of the papers in our study are based on research in the dry sub-tropical and tropical zones, although these eco-climatic zones account for more than 52% of the world's land area. Based on these results, we discuss how the limited empirical source and focus of environmental research undermine the claims of universality of environmental science and what consequences this may have on policymaking processes at different levels. Finally, we briefly explore some short- and long-term strategies to address the knowledge divide.     

Risks in urban rooftop agriculture: Assessing stakeholders’ perceptions to ensure efficient policymaking

Rooftop agriculture (RA) is an innovative form of urban agriculture that takes advantage of unused urban spaces while promoting local food production. However, the implementation of RA projects is limited due to stakeholders’ perceived risks. Such risks should be addressed and minimized in policymaking processes to ensure the sustainable deployment of RA initiatives. This paper evaluates the risks that stakeholders perceive in RA and compares these perceptions with the currently available knowledge, including scientific literature, practices and market trends. Qualitative interviews with 56 stakeholders from Berlin and Barcelona were analyzed for this purpose. The results show that perceived risks can be grouped into five main categories: i) risks associated with urban integration (e.g., conflicts with images of “agriculture”), ii) risks associated with the production system (e.g., gentrification potential), iii) risks associated with food products (e.g., soil-less growing techniques are “unnatural”), iv) environmental risks (e.g., limited organic certification) and v) economic risks (e.g., competition with other rooftop uses). These risks are primarily related to a lack of (scientific) knowledge, insufficient communication and non-integrative policymaking. We offer recommendations for efficient project design and policymaking processes. In particular, demonstration and dissemination activities as well as participatory policymaking can narrow the communication gap between RA developers and citizens.     

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.     

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.     

The Norwegian Red List between science and policy

This article explores how science and policy interact using the Norwegian Red List 2006 as a case example. The paper draws on concepts from the sociology of science, interviews with key informants, as well as analysis of a Norwegian newspaper debate about a controversial conservation issue.The paper highlights how the relationship between science and policy can best be described as an interaction rather than simply a transmission of knowledge from one to the other. In addition, the study focuses on the active construction and communication of the science–policy relationship. Regulators, scientists and NGOs, it is argued, strategically define the relationship between science and policy as more straightforward than it really is.The paper suggests that the shaping, simplification and communication of scientific knowledge is best understood as a social process that occurs in three stages, which may overlap to varying degrees. The shaping of scientific knowledge for policy occurs first within the scientific domain. The shaping, we suggest, is the result of both the broader institutional context and a more specific micro-level social context, but it is also the outcome of requirements inherent in the genre of science communication. In the second stage, regulators and actors in the public debate redefine and simplify scientific knowledge to make it better suited to the policy arena. In the final stage, scientists, regulators and NGOs actively seek to define science as objectively true, and independent of the policy arena. By doing so, they are able to strengthen their arguments, regardless of their position on particular issues. But they also contribute to shrouding the social nature of scientific production.     

Uncertainties in the assessment of “significant effect” on the Dutch Natura 2000 Wadden Sea site – The mussel seed fishery and powerboat race controversies

Natura 2000, the nature network based on the European Bird and Habitat Directives, is explicitly grounded on ecological science. To acquire a permit under the Dutch Nature Conservation Act, an appropriate assessment of significant effects must be conducted based on the best available scientific knowledge. In this way the scientific and policy world are directly linked. This article focuses on ‘significant effect’ as a boundary object to analyse how science–policy interactions shape the meaning and assessment of significant effect and how these interpretations influence the decision-making process. To this end, two conflicts over significant effect are investigated: the conflict over the 2006-spring permit for the mussel seed fishery, and the 2011 permit for the planned World Championship powerboat races. In both cases nature organisations started a court process against the government-granted permits in protest to the “no significant effect” claim, stating that there was insufficient certainty for this conclusion. These conflicts are approached as controversies between discourse coalitions with different interpretations of the ecological knowledge. We show how significant effect became a focal point in the controversies, limiting the debate to ecological arguments and science-based expertise, but also creating options for parties to advance their protest by articulating uncertainties. Only uncertainty of incomplete knowledge was explicitly addressed, excluding ambiguity of values and unpredictability of the actual ecosystem. We suggest that acknowledging the value aspect in disputes on significant effect would leave more space for effective solutions of the problems under debate.     

Wildfire policy and use of science in the context of a socio-ecological system on the Aegean Archipelago

This paper summarizes the results of a primarily qualitative (with certain quantitative elements) socio-ecological study on three Greek islands of the Aegean Archipelago to characterize fire science and policy at regional and local levels, and perceptions of fire risk. Among the most important factors influencing dynamics of fire regimes on the islands are changing land use patterns and practices, and changes in climate and fuel conditions. While use of scientific information is not widespread, there are individuals in all three islands who regularly consult scientific sources. Although fire policy is largely controlled at the national and European Union levels, local activity also occurs, most notably through the volunteer fire fighting organizations, interactions with local officials, and public education efforts. However, though seen as important, significant lack of financial support and resources exist to support prevention and pre-suppression programs. Prevention of fires on the islands, including the use of prescribed burning, is relatively inadequate, and while an intense interest in preventing the loss of communities and ecosystems is frequently encountered, public participation in fire prevention remains limited. The findings suggest that relying on local knowledge, in combination with fire managers’ decision-making abilities, could improve fire management options and reduce wildfire suppression costs and ecological disasters.     

Science–policy interface for addressing environmental problems in arid Spain

Science–policy interfaces are avenues for finding solutions for environmental challenges through strengthening collaborations between research disciplines and public administrations. Here we present a methodology for the conduct of science–policy interfaces between scientists and policymakers for addressing day-to-day environmental problems in the southeastern Spanish drylands. A knowledge brokering approach based on six consecutive workshops was used to facilitate mutual understanding and trust between scientists and policymakers. Water policy and biodiversity loss were identified as major environmental concerns in the region, and 12 final environmental problems were agreed as priorities. A graphical tool was used for diagnosing each environmental problem according to the available scientific knowledge, the current regulatory capacity of administrations, and the level of public engagement necessary for addressing the problem. The use of the graphical tool also allowed for (a) the clarification of roles involved in problem solving, and (b) the promotion of a culture of shared responsibility for the implementation of management actions based on collaborative work. We discuss lessons learned and propose recommendations for future experiences.     

Effective risk governance for environmental policy making: A knowledge management perspective

Effective risk management within environmental policy making requires knowledge on natural, economic and social systems to be integrated; knowledge characterised by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. We describe a case study in a (UK) central government department exploring how risk governance supports and hinders this challenging integration of knowledge. Forty-five semi-structured interviews were completed over a two year period. We found that lateral knowledge transfer between teams working on different policy areas was widely viewed as a key source of knowledge. However, the process of lateral knowledge transfer was predominantly informal and unsupported by risk governance structures. We argue this made decision quality vulnerable to a loss of knowledge through staff turnover, and time and resource pressures. Our conclusion is that the predominant form of risk governance framework, with its focus on centralised decision-making and vertical knowledge transfer is insufficient to support risk-based, environmental policy making. We discuss how risk governance can better support environmental policy makers through systematic knowledge management practices.     

Public support for carrot,stick, and no-government water quality policies

Public support for environmental policy provides an important foundation for democratic governance. Numerous policy innovations may improve nonpoint source pollution, but little research has examined which types of individuals are likely to support various runoff reduction policies. We conducted a household mail survey of 1136 residents in southern Wisconsin. In general, residents were more likely to support water quality policies if they were communitarians, egalitarians, concerned about water pollution, and perceived water quality as poor. The majority of respondents somewhat to strongly supported all of the seven proposed water quality policies, but opposed relying on voluntary action without government involvement on farms. Residents had higher support for incentives and market-based approaches (carrot policies) than regulation and taxes (stick policies). A more complicated pattern emerged in within-subject comparisons of residents’ views of carrot and stick approaches. Stick approaches polarized respondents by decreasing support among people with individualistic worldviews, while slightly increasing support among people with communitarian worldviews. Residents with an agricultural occupation were more likely to support voluntary, non-governmental approaches for reducing agricultural runoff, and were also more likely to support regulation for reducing urban lawn runoff. This research highlights the dominant role of cultural worldviews and the secondary roles of water pollution concern, perceived water quality, and self-interest in explaining support for diverse policies to reduce nonpoint source pollution.     

From science to policy through transdisciplinary research

Is transdisciplinary research a useful means of bridging science and policy? And does transdisciplinarity go beyond informing public agencies, the private sector, or civil society of the results of research? The interacting policy cultures serve as a framework for studying transdisciplinary projects funded by two environmental research programs, the Swiss Priority Program Environment (SPPE) and the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA). Two types of projects are distinguished. Researchers in projects of the first type reorganize knowledge according to the (perceived) interest of the audience. Transdisciplinary research of this type requires a clearly defined audience culture. Researchers in projects of the second type initiate a co-production of knowledge during which the different policy cultures interact. Transdisciplinary research of type two is appropriate for policies that have to be developed using a collective process involving multiple policy cultures.     

QUICKScan as a quick and participatory methodology for problem identification and scoping in policy processes

Policy making is required in cases in which a public good needs to be either maintained or created, and private or civil initiatives cannot deal alone with this. Policy making thus starts with a phase of problem identification and determining whether there is a problem that needs to be dealt with. Rapidly evolving contexts exert influence on policy makers who have to take decisions much faster and more accurately than in the past, also facing greater complexity. There is a need for a method that lowers the lead time of the exploratory phase of the policy cycle. At the same time the method should create a joint understanding of the most important interactions. This paper proposes QUICKScan, a method, process and spatially explicit tool, to jointly scope policy problems in a participatory setting, investigate the most important interactions and feedbacks and assesses the state of knowledge and data of relevance to the problem. QUICKScan uses strongly moderated participatory workshops bringing together a wide range of stakeholders relevant to the policy issue. These moderated workshops jointly build an expert system in a spatially explicit tool using functionality of bayesian belief networks, python programming, simple map algebra and knowledge matrices, with a strong focus on visualization of results. QUICKScan has been applied in 70 different applications in a range of different policy contexts, stakeholders and physical locations. Through these applications participants were able to internalize the knowledge that was usually handed to them in briefs and reports, to develop a joint understanding of the main interactions and their link to impacts and to develop a problem statement and solution space in a reduced lead time. Ultimately, QUICKScan demonstrates another role of science, not solely as a knowledge production, but also facilitating the knowledge consumption.     

Making science relevant to environmental policy

Implementation of current environmental and natural resource policy has created an era of regulatory discontent, and has prompted calls for new approaches to management that can achieve both long-term ecological sustainability and improved policy performance. These new approaches, such as ecosystem management, emphasize the importance of holistic and integrated science, meaningful public involvement to reflect changing societal goals and objectives, collaborative decisionmaking, and flexible and adaptable institutions. Implementing such approaches will require significant institutional change in all institutions, including the institution of science. Attributes of the scientific culture — including adherence to the myth of objective, value-free science, preference for technical solutions as first-order solutions, and advancement of the scientific method and scientific rationality as preferred logic — have often worked to separate scientists from citizens and science from the policymaking process. They have also fostered undemocratic processes and results. Changes in the institution and culture of science, including embracing more holistic and integrated scientific processes, creating a more civic science, and rethinking the role of scientific advocacy in the policy process, will be required to move toward democratic as well as ecological sustainability.     

How to be a more effective environmental scientist in management and policy contexts

This paper is intended for young researchers with an environmental conscience, alerting them that a self-centred ecology can work against conservation and other desirable goals. I propose that there is confusion in the biophysical ecologists’ community about the role of knowledge, stemming from several already surpassed beliefs that have been strongly criticized by scholars in the field of science and technology studies. In particular, environmental scientists still often seem trapped in the information deficit model, assuming a linear and unidirectional flow of knowledge from experts to users. This leads to an incomplete understanding and unrealistic expectations of ongoing processes of citizen participation (co-production of knowledge), impatience regarding the speed at which issues can be dealt with by politics, and a fuzzy notion of the role of our convictions regarding the value of nature conservation when we are consulted as experts. I analyse the consequences of disregarding tacit knowledge, i.e. the one knowledge beyond that codified in academic papers and books. I emphasize that preferences and values have a large influence on how we perceive, process, and act (or postpone to act) on information on our non-exclusive roles as scientists, decision makers or citizens. I argue that this is why political and ideological preferences have a large influence not only on which teams are appointed to solve problems, but also on which situations are perceived as problematic and given higher priorities. I include a cheat-sheet to enhance communication with decision-makers and other non-scientists that could prevent environmental zeal to be transformed into society’s annoyance and our eventual irrelevance. I plea for a more realistic attitude towards ecological research, highlighting that in environmental debates we are also long-term stakeholders, and not only casual, external and aseptic observers.     

Modelling individual preferences for environmental policy drivers: Empirical evidence of Italian lifestyle changes using a latent class approach

Degraded air quality severely affects the health of citizens worldwide. The design of effective policies requires exploring public preferences for environmental and air quality policy instruments. Within the EC-FP7 SEFIRA project, using a choice experiment that stresses the trade-offs between attributes, this study investigates public preferences for environmental policy drivers in Italy. The main objective is to investigate the role played by selected policy drivers in determining policy preferences, complemented by elasticity and willingness to pay estimations. Preference heterogeneity and the role of socio-economic and attitudinal variables are explored with a latent class model over 2400 respondents sampled across Italy. The results allow identifying the different role played by the policy drivers across the classes. It emerged that most of the respondents (43%) are particularly sensitive to the cost components (cost sensitive respondents). The remaining respondents instead show an important sensitivity towards personal engagement in term of changes in the mobility and eating habits (lifestyle-change sensitive respondents). However, while 29% of them perceive these habits’ changes as negatively impacting on the personal utility, the other 28% of respondents translate the potential changes in the habitual behaviour of driving and eating as environmental and health benefits. Based on the modelling results, potential policies are simulated reporting respondents’ reaction to selected scenarios. It shows the crucial role played by reduction of premature deaths due to atmospheric pollution and measure cost.     

Negotiating Indigenous knowledge at the science-policy interface: Insights from the Xáxli’p Community Forest

Despite increasing interest in learning from Indigenous communities, efforts to involve Indigenous knowledge in environmental policy-making are often fraught with contestations over knowledge, values, and interests. Using the co-production of knowledge and social order (Jasanoff, 2004), this case study seeks to understand how some Indigenous communities are engaging in science-policy negotiations by linking traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), western science, and other knowledge systems. The analysis follows twenty years of Indigenous forest management negotiations between the Xáxli’p community and the Ministry of Forests in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, which resulted in the Xáxli’p Community Forest (XCF). The XCF is an eco-cultural restoration initiative that established an exclusive forest tenure for Xáxli’p over the majority of their aboriginal territory—a political shift that was co-produced with new articulations of Xáxli’p knowledge. This research seeks to understand knowledge co-production with Indigenous communities, and suggests that existing knowledge integration concepts are insufficient to address ongoing challenges with power asymmetries and Indigenous knowledge. Rather, this work proposes interpreting XCF knowledge production strategies through the framework of “Indigenous articulations,” where Indigenous peoples self-determine representations of their identities and interests in a contemporary socio-political context. This work has broader implications for considering how Indigenous knowledge is shaping science-policy negotiations, and vice versa.     

Science,policy and place in volcanic disasters: Insights from Montserrat

This paper presents the results of empirical research on Montserrat, in the British West Indies, undertaken in 2008–2010. It highlights the challenges of managing a crisis that evolved from acute to chronic over a period of fifteen years. In particular, the paper considers the evolution of science and policy over a period of fifteen years in its social and cultural context. It discusses the relationship between different types of evolving knowledges, and the interaction between them. Finally, a reflexive model is introduced to draw attention to some of the challenges of managing the science–policy interface under high uncertainty and high stakes.