Creating usable science: Opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy
Creating usable science: Opportunities and constraints for climate knowledge use and their implications for science policy
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DOI：
10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.11.006
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发表时间：
2011-05-01
影响因子：
8.9
通讯作者：
Lemos, Maria Carmen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dilling, Lisa;Lemos, Maria Carmen
在过去几十年里，美国的决策者越来越多地呼吁公共资助的科学为决策提供“有用”的信息，无论是在酸雨、预防饥荒还是气候变化政策方面。随着对可用性的需求在公共责任科学计划中变得越来越普遍，有必要更好地了解科学使用的机会和限制，以便为政策设计和实施提供信息。出于最近的美国全球变化研究计划的决策支持功能的批评，本文旨在解决这个问题，具体审查气候科学的生产和使用。它回顾了来自丰富的学术研究的经验证据，重点是气候科学的使用，特别是季节性气候预测，以确定限制或促进可用性的因素。它发现，首先，气候科学的可用性是一个功能的潜在使用的背景下，科学知识生产本身的过程。第二，几乎每一个成功利用气候知识的案例都涉及知识生产者和使用者之间的某种迭代。本文认为，而不是一个自动的结果，呼吁生产可用的科学，迭代是行动的具体行动者和组织的结果，谁“拥有”的任务，建立促进其创造的条件和机制。几种不同类型的体制安排可以完成这一任务，这取决于需求和现有资源。虽然并非所有提高科学决策可用性的因素都在科学企业本身的范围内，但许多因素确实提供了改进的机会。科学政策机制，如给予研究项目的灵活性水平和用于评估研究投资成果的指标，对于为迭代和产生可用的科学提供必要的基础至关重要。(C)2010爱思唯尔有限公司版权所有。
In the past several decades, decision makers in the United States have increasingly called upon publicly funded science to provide "usable" information for policy making, whether in the case of acid rain, famine prevention or climate change policy. As demands for usability become more prevalent for publicly accountable scientific programs, there is a need to better understand opportunities and constraints to science use in order to inform policy design and implementation. Motivated by recent critique of the decision support function of the US Global Change Research Program, this paper seeks to address this issue by specifically examining the production and use of climate science. It reviews empirical evidence from the rich scholarship focused on climate science use, particularly seasonal climate forecasts, to identify factors that constrain or foster usability. It finds, first, that climate science usability is a function both of the context of potential use and of the process of scientific knowledge production itself. Second, nearly every case of successful use of climate knowledge involved some kind of iteration between knowledge producers and users. The paper argues that, rather than an automatic outcome of the call for the production of usable science, iterativity is the result of the action of specific actors and organizations who 'own' the task of building the conditions and mechanisms fostering its creation. Several different types of institutional arrangements can accomplish this task, depending on the needs and resources available. While not all of the factors that enhance usability of science for decision making are within the realm of the scientific enterprise itself, many do offer opportunities for improvement. Science policy mechanisms such as the level of flexibility afforded to research projects and the metrics used to evaluate the outcomes of research investment can be critical to providing the necessary foundation for iterativity and production of usable science to occur. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.