When Do Climate Services Achieve Societal Impact? Evaluations of Actionable Climate Adaptation Science

Abstract

To cope with complex environmental impacts in a changing climate, researchers are increasingly being asked to produce science that can directly support policy and decision making. To achieve such societal impact, scientists are using climate services to engage directly with stakeholders to better understand their needs and inform knowledge production. However, the wide variety of climate-services outcomes—ranging from establishing collegial relationships with stakeholders to obtaining specific information for inclusion into a pre-existing decision process—do not directly connect to traditional methods of measuring scientific impact (e.g., publication citations, journal impact factor). In this paper, we describe how concepts from the discipline of evaluation can be used to examine the societal impacts of climate services. We also present a case study from climate impacts and adaptation research to test a scalable evaluation approach. Those who conduct research for the purposes of climate services and those who fund applied climate research would benefit from evaluation from the beginning of project development. Doing so will help ensure that the approach, data collection, and data analysis are appropriately conceived and executed.

Seventy questions of importance to the conservation of the North Central grasslands of the United States in a changing climate

“…The identification of the 70 broadly shared questions presented above represents an important first step toward the development of actionable science to support grassland management in the North Central region within the context of climate change. Collaboration and engagement between the research and management communities is key to crafting science information that will support decisionmaking and adaptation planning (c.f., Bamzai-Dodson et al, 2021;Bamzai-Dodson & McPherson, 2022). Though our 70 questions provide a foundation for this engagement, additional steps are needed to build collaborative relationships and further refine these questions to address site-and management-specific challenges on the ground.…”

Participation and co‐production in climate adaptation: Scope and limits identified from a meta‐method review of research with European coastal communities

“…Participation and co‐production are similarly associated with a view of opening science and research to the input and influence of “outside” non‐experts in substantive ways (Chambers et al, 2021; Wyborn et al, 2019; Wynne‐Jones et al, 2015), for example with increased interactions and trust‐building between researchers and stakeholders shown to be key drivers of knowledge generation and use among the latter (Fritz & Binder, 2018). However, even as such congruence has unsurprisingly led to growing interest in the possibilities for participation and co‐production for climate adaptation (e.g., Bennett et al, 2016; Conway et al, 2019; Few et al, 2006; Ford et al, 2016; Wyborn, 2015), the preconditions and processes for effective adaptation‐focused applications of participation and co‐production remain poorly understood (Lemos, 2015; Lemos et al, 2018; Mach et al, 2020), having received modest critical treatment to date (e.g., Bamzai‐Dodson & McPherson, 2022; Bremer & Meisch, 2017; Turnhout et al, 2019), and in a limited number of contexts (e.g., the Arctic [Flynn et al, 2018], Pacific island states [Ensor et al, 2018], and North America [Bremer & Meisch, 2017]). As the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly apparent and widespread, the gap between interest in and critical appraisal of participation and co‐production uses supporting climate adaptation grows more urgent to address and extend to other contexts.…”