Credibility and Relevance in Environmental Policy: Measuring Strategies and Performance among Science Assessment Organizations

Keller, Ann

doi:10.1093/jopart/mup001

Cited by 23 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 29 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…3). Evidence from practitioners in the field and qualitative studies claim that salience, credibility, and legitimacy are important to generate policy action, even while they recognize tradeoffs may be necessary among these attributes (16)(17)(18)20). Our results indicate that these attributes are not equally important for each stage of impact we considered.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…"Salience" refers to the relevance of scientific knowledge to the needs of decisionmakers; "credibility" comes from scientific and technical arguments being trustworthy and expert-based; and "legitimacy" refers to knowledge that is produced in an unbiased way and that fairly considers stakeholders' different points of view. Their framework has inspired researchers to investigate these three attributes and how they affect decision-makers using knowledge (17)(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Policy impacts of ecosystem services knowledge

Posner

McKenzie

Ricketts

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

217

144

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Research about ecosystem services (ES) often aims to generate knowledge that influences policies and institutions for conservation and human development. However, we have limited understanding of how decision-makers use ES knowledge or what factors facilitate use. Here we address this gap and report on, to our knowledge, the first quantitative analysis of the factors and conditions that explain the policy impact of ES knowledge. We analyze a global sample of cases where similar ES knowledge was generated and applied to decision-making. We first test whether attributes of ES knowledge themselves predict different measures of impact on decisions. We find that legitimacy of knowledge is more often associated with impact than either the credibility or salience of the knowledge. We also examine whether predictor variables related to the science-to-policy process and the contextual conditions of a case are significant in predicting impact. Our findings indicate that, although many factors are important, attributes of the knowledge and aspects of the science-to-policy process that enhance legitimacy best explain the impact of ES science on decision-making. Our results are consistent with both theory and previous qualitative assessments in suggesting that the attributes and perceptions of scientific knowledge and process within which knowledge is coproduced are important determinants of whether that knowledge leads to action. ecosystem services | science policy interface | conservation | knowledge systems | boundary organizations T he ongoing loss of biological diversity and persistence of poverty have sparked interest in policies that protect, restore, and enhance ecosystem services (ES). In response, there has been a growth in ES research that aims to inform policies, incentives, and institutions on a large scale (1-3). Despite this goal, scientific knowledge about ES continues to have limited impact on policy and decisions (1, 4-7).The fact that most land-and resource-use policy decisions still do not take ES into account stems in part from an ineffective interface between ES science and policy, a need for scientists to better understand decision-making processes, and challenges in clarifying conflicting stakeholder values (8-11). In some cases, the science-policy interface is an important aspect of decisionmaking, but often the ES research and policy communities are disconnected from one another, with limited interactions, infrequent exchanges of information, and different objectives that hinder coordinated science and policy processes (12). Many scientists conduct ES research without fully considering how the knowledge they are producing might be used (5). If we want ES information to be incorporated into decisions, then we need to understand how and why decision-makers use certain kinds of information. We define "information" as a tangible, factual output of scientific research produced through specific ES analyses; "knowledge" as a body of information learned and conveyed through scientific and policy processes; ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy impacts of ecosystem services knowledge

Posner

McKenzie

Ricketts

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

217

144

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For example, a number of researchers have found the US National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) to be irrelevant to the policy-making process despite efforts to maintain credibility, saliency, and legitimacy (93)(94)(95). Similarly, despite efforts to ensure the credibility (e.g., peer reviewed), legitimacy and saliency (e.g., stakeholder participation) of the product and process of the first United States National Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change (USNA), limitations of assessment process itself (e.g.…”

Section: Systems and Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actionable Knowledge for Environmental Decision Making: Broadening the Usability of Climate Science

Kirchhoff

Lemos

Dessai

2013

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

421

271

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KeywordsScience-policy model; producer-user interaction; user typology; information usability; climate information use AbstractConsistently scholars have sought to characterize society's relationship to science, especially to understand how it shapes the way science is produced and used in decision making. These efforts spurred a rapid evolution in models of science-society interaction with growing levels of complexity both in terms of interdisciplinarity and involvement of stakeholders. Despite these efforts, the rate of use of science in decision-making remains below expectations. This suggests a persistent gap between production and use which, to date, efforts to re-think and restructure science production have not been able to surmount. We review the different models of science-society interaction and the emergence of new approaches to knowledge creation to understand how they have influenced the organization of knowledge production and application. We then examine

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“…Data users within a regulatory or management setting look for signals of credibility accompanying traditional academic science, such as peer review or investigator reputation (Keller 2009). While rarely explicitly discussed, these signals are an important element in arenas where legal or constituent defensibility is a requirement (Shapin 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies Employed by Citizen Science Programs to Increase the Credibility of Their Data

Freitag

Meyer

Whiteman

2016

CSTP

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The success of citizen science in producing important and unique data is attracting interest from scientists and resource managers. Nonetheless, questions remain about the credibility of citizen science data. Citizen science programs desire to meet the same standards of credibility as academic science, but they usually work within a different context, for example, training and managing significant numbers of volunteers with limited resources. We surveyed the credibility-building strategies of 30 citizen science programs that monitor environmental aspects of the California coast. We identified a total of twelve strategies: Three that are applied during training and planning; four that are applied during data collection; and five that are applied during data analysis and program evaluation. Variation in the application of these strategies by program is related to factors such as the number of participants, the focus on group or individual work, and the time commitment required of volunteers. The structure of each program and available resources require program designers to navigate tradeoffs in the choices of their credibility strategies. Our results illustrate those tradeoffs and provide a framework for the necessary discussions between citizen science programs and potential users of their data-including scientists and decision makers-about shared expectations for credibility and practical approaches for meeting those expectations.

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Credibility and Relevance in Environmental Policy: Measuring Strategies and Performance among Science Assessment Organizations

Cited by 23 publications

References 29 publications

Policy impacts of ecosystem services knowledge

Policy impacts of ecosystem services knowledge

Actionable Knowledge for Environmental Decision Making: Broadening the Usability of Climate Science

Strategies Employed by Citizen Science Programs to Increase the Credibility of Their Data

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