How to diminish the geographical bias in IPBES and related science?

Abstract

To tackle the current global environmental crisis, operational science‐policy interfaces are needed. The Intergovernmental Science‐policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides governments with policy advice via its assessment reports. To expand the evidence‐base and to support the uptake of IPBES products, participation needs to be balanced across the globe. We found imbalance in authors’ distribution at both the UN regional and country level. It is more pronounced for IPBES‐related scientific papers than for the IPBES global assessment. The more detached from politics the decision of getting involved is, the more imbalanced the representation of the regions becomes. To improve the IPBES’ geographical balance, a strategy to increase the number of active member states is called for. We argued that without explicit efforts to reach the balance—for example, providing an attractive research environment for excellent researchers in their home country, improving cooperation among countries across the UN regions, and granting publication opportunity for all authors—the idea of geographic equality diminishes.

Steps to diversify priority‐setting research in conservation: reflections on de Gracia 2021

“…Thinking practically, one thing to do is set clear authorship guidelines that ensure people from diverse backgrounds are given the opportunity to participate in and lead priority-setting research. This is similar to the model that the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) follows when nominating contributing authors (although this too has been criticized for not going far enough [Báldi & Palotás, 2021]).…”

Multilingualism for pluralising knowledge and decision making about people and nature relationships

“…In this sense, the attractiveness of international groups of experts speaking with ‘one voice’ based on consensual typologies composed of agreed‐upon words and concepts may need to be nuanced; while acknowledging the need for diversity, such diversity may be ‘defined and structured in such a way that potential conflicts and tensions remain hidden’ (Díaz‐Reviriego et al, 2019, p. 460). Linguistic dominance in the way science is done as well as in the ways both national and international science‐policy initiatives operate is tied to unbalanced geographical representation (Báldi & Palotás, 2021) as well as to the dominance of certain worldviews over others. Scientists are not immune to the cultural and linguistic biases that occur due to asymmetric power relations in the scientific community.…”

Overcoming Language Barriers in Academia: Machine Translation Tools and a Vision for a Multilingual Future

“…In addition, non-English-language literature could expand both the geographical and the taxonomic coverage in biodiversity studies (Khelifa and Mahdjoub 2022 ). Biases in who contributes to science and makes these management decisions also reduce the credibility and global buy-in to these management practices (Baldi and Palotas 2021 ).…”