The role of science-policy interface in sustainable urban water transitions: Lessons from Rotterdam

This paper investigates the role of the science-policy interface in leveraging transitions to sustainable urban water management. The paper presents a case study of the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which is increasingly regarded as a global leader in adaptive and resilient urban water management. The analysis reveals that Rotterdam’s transition has occurred incrementally over the past 15 years, driven by policy entrepreneurs: largely municipal policy makers and policy practitioners. Strategic use of the science-policy interface (SPI) has facilitated the development of innovative solutions to achieve policy goals and created the enabling conditions necessary for transformative change. The Rotterdam case suggests that an effective SPI requires: (1) compelling water narrative; (2) cross-sectoral collaboration; (3) co-production of knowledge; (4) experiential evidence-based learning; (5) strategic use of trusted scientists; (6) fostering networks; and (7) generating business from science-based innovation. Rotterdam’s strategic approach to knowledge and innovation coupled with a new narrative around water sets it apart from many other cities and adds a new dimension to debates regarding enabling factors for advancing sustainable practices. These findings will be of interest to those engaged in urban water management policy and practice, environmental governance, and debates over transitions more broadly.     

Navigating the authority paradox: Practising objectivity in environmental expertise

We empirically reveal how environmental experts interpret the objectivity norm while navigating the authority paradox. The paradox here is that while there is a need for objective scientific advice, such advice is only to be acquired from experts and expert agencies whose objectivity and, hence, authority are contested. Viewed through the lens of practice, we identify what practitioners at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency understand by objectivity. Using this paradigmatic case, we show how practitioners renegotiate the meaning of objectivity while seeking to engage with new policy actors and extended peers in an independent, rigorous and legitimate manner. Successfully navigating the authority paradox is related to skilfully representing and adapting to various meanings of objectivity. Experts and experts agencies accordingly need reflexive skills to recognise which meanings of objectivity they ascribe to and which ones are invoked in public debates. Environmental experts who are able to loosely connect diverse objectivity conceptions are more likely considered as trustworthy and authoritative partners in environmental science-policy interfaces.     

Policy-makers perspectives on credibility,relevance and legitimacy (CRELE)

For more than a decade, a popular theory amongst scholars of science-policy interactions has been that research is most effective at informing policy and decision-making processes when it is credible, relevant and legitimate (CRELE) with multiple audiences simultaneously. In this paper, we argue that this triad reflects a primarily intra-scientific perspective, rather than the needs and considerations of policy-makers themselves. Using over seventy semi-structured interviews with policy-makers, we present alternative criteria for effective science-policy interactions based on experiences in the urban water sector. We find that applicability, comprehensiveness, timing and accessibility (ACTA) better summarises the most important aspects of scientific research when it comes to influencing decision-making, while finding that CRELE was a poor predictor of policy-maker concerns. Whilst the ACTA quartet effectively gives double-billing to the ‘relevance’ component of CRELE, credibility and legitimacy were much lower priorities for policy-makers interviewed. This article questions whether CRELE is a useful mindset for researchers interested in policy influence. These findings will be of interest to those engaged in debates related to effective science-policy interactions more broadly, and researchers that want to marshal policy influence more specifically.     

The social side of spatial decision support systems: Investigating knowledge integration and learning

Spatial decision support systems (SDSS) represent a step forward in efforts to account for the spatial dimension in environmental decision-making. The aim of SDSS is to help policymakers and practitioners access, interpret and understand information from data, analyses and models, and guide them in identifying possible actions during a decision-making process. Researchers, however, report difficulties in up-take of SDSS by the intended users. Some suggest that this field would benefit from investigation of the social aspects involved in SDSS design, development, testing and use. Borrowing insights from the literature on science-policy interactions, we explore two key social processes: knowledge integration and learning. Using a sample of 36 scientific papers concerning SDSS in relation to environmental issues, we surveyed whether and how the selected papers reported on knowledge integration and learning. We found that while many of the papers mentioned communication and collaboration with prospective user groups or stakeholders, this was seldom underpinned by a coherent methodology for enabling knowledge integration and learning to surface. This appears to have hindered SDSS development and later adoption by intended users.     

Learning about climate change solutions in the IPCC and beyond

There has been much debate about the assessment process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet two of the most fundamental challenges that directly threaten the ability of the IPCC to fulfill its mandate have been largely neglected so far. Firstly, the magnitude and rapid expansion of the climate change literature makes it increasingly impossible for the IPCC to conduct comprehensive and transparent assessments without major innovations in assessment practices and tools. Secondly, the structure, organization and scientific practices across the social sciences and humanities prohibit systematic learning on climate change solutions and increasingly limit the policy-relevance of IPCC assessments. We highlight the need for responses along three avenues to prepare the IPCC for continued success in the future: 1) IPCC assessments must make better use of big-data methods and available computational power to assess the growing body of literature and ensure comprehensiveness; 2) systematic review practices need to be enshrined into IPCC procedures to ensure adequate focus and transparency in its assessments; 3) a synthetic research culture needs to be established in the social sciences and humanities in order to foster knowledge accumulation and learning on climate solutions in the future. As policymakers become more interested in understanding solutions, the future prospects of global environmental assessment enterprises will depend heavily on a successful transformation within the social sciences and humanities towards systematic knowledge generation. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented Global Environmental Assessments.     

Boundary work in climate policy making in Brazil: Reflections from the frontlines of the science-policy interface

Despite challenges to the authority and legitimacy of science as a neutral representation of the world, expert advisors are playing an increasingly central role in environmental policy-making in both the Global North and South. This article explores the science-policy interface, based on the experience of the main author as a scientist and policy-maker at FEAM, a state-level environmental agency in Brazil. Contributing to the literature on boundary objects and organizations, the article details the practices necessary to manage the relationship between political and scientific norms in the development of the regional Climate and Energy Plan (CEP) for the state of Minas Gerais. To sustain the role of FEAM as a boundary organization mediating between political and scientific demands, a team of scientists and policy-makers had to perform different types of boundary work in a closely connected manner. It was necessary to actively frame climate change as an economic problem, and structure its solution in terms of mitigation mechanisms. Responding to changes in the national and international political context, FEAM reframed climate change from mitigation into largely an adaptation issue that could lead to win-win solutions as to attain saliency and avoid insurmountable political obstacles for its approval. Based on this experience, the article argues that the performance of boundary objects and organizations in the science-policy interface not only requires an ability to bring ‘truth to power’ but to also the capacity to sense, anticipate and avoid political obstacles. For this reason even though boundary organizations provide a breeding ground for institutional learning it is an unsuitable location for scientific or political revolutions.     

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.     

Erosion Control at Construction Sites: The Science–Policy Gap

/ To test the effectiveness of Michigan's soil erosion control law, 30 construction sites were evaluated in the east-central part of the state. The analytical framework lumped nine best management practices (BMPs) most closely related to the law into three categories: slope stabilization, soil stabilization, and water management. All sites were in the land clearing or foundation/framing stage of construction and were evaluated within 2 days after a rainfall event. Only four of the sites performed above the mean of the scoring scale, with the categorical scoring of BMPs indicating the worst performance for slope stabilization measures. The poor results suggest a failure to integrate scientific knowledge of erosion control with policy. A fundamental problem is the lack of basic site data on soil, topography, and hydrology, resulting in the incorrect application of BMPs, such as staging, filter fences, and berms. The current institutional framework for soil erosion control also provides disincentives to mitigate local erosion problems.     

Global environmental assessments: Impact mechanisms

Many impacts of Global Environmental Assessment (GEA) processes on policy processes, and the mechanisms underlying these impacts, remain underappreciated. In this research, we focus on the 5th Global Environment Outlook and the Working Group III contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Based on the perception of GEA process participants, we describe the mechanisms through which assessments create or alter interpersonal interactions which can affect the dissemination of ideas. In particular, we find that GEAs can contribute to framing international coordinative discourses in intergovernmental negotiations. This can be achieved by widening, improving and/or maintaining the active participation of policy actors in the discussions of global environmental risks and by creating the scientific foundations for intergovernmental negotiations. GEAs can also contribute to national coordinative discourses by facilitating reflexive learning amongst participants, empowering them to diffuse and translate global information, and by providing methodological guidance. They can contribute to national communicative discourses by reviving interest and awareness of the urgency to address environmental problems. In this way they provide powerful arguments for governmental societal actors to challenge or strengthen existing national coordinative discourses. Finally, GEAs can improve scientific discourses worldwide by enhancing the capacity of individual researchers to produce and communicate relevant research insights. This is achieved by participating in a learning exercise with an extended community of peers and policy actors. This article is part of a special issue on solution-oriented global environmental assessments.     

Uncertainty communication in environmental assessments: views from the Dutch science-policy interface

Scientific assessments of environmental problems, and policy responses to those problems, involve uncertainties of many sorts. Meanwhile, potential impacts of wrong decisions can be far-reaching. This article explores views on uncertainty and uncertainty communication in the Dutch science-policy interface and studies several issues concerning presentation of uncertainty information. Respondents considered uncertainty communication to be important, but it should be concise and policy relevant. Several factors influence policy relevance, including the place of an issue in the policy cycle, and its novelty, topicality and controversiality. Respondents held particular interest in explicit communication on the implications of uncertainty. Related to this, they appreciated information on different sources and types of uncertainty and qualitative aspects of uncertainty (e.g. pedigree charts). The article also studies probability terms, particularly for IPCC's 33–66% probability interval (‘about as likely as not’). Several terms worked reasonably well, with a median interpretation of 40–60%. Finally, as various target groups have different information needs and different amounts of attention for various parts of a report or communication process, it is important to progressively disclose uncertainty information throughout the communication. Improved communication of uncertainty information leads to a deeper understanding and increased awareness of the phenomenon of uncertainty and its policy implications.