November 30, 2005
The US Climate Change Science Program and Decision Support
[Also posted on Prometheus blog]
A few weeks ago, the US Climate Change Science Program held a large public workshop with the stated goal of “serving as a forum to address the Program’s progress and future plans regarding its three decision support approaches.” In the Strategic plan, these three approaches are broken down into producing synthesis and assessment reports, developing adaptive management approaches and developing methods to support climate change policy making. This conference was organized around only the first two topics, not explicitly discussing the third.
I attended the workshop, along with about 800 other people. The breakdown of attendees was not given, but among presenters the statistics were clear—scientists and government participants dominated. The paucity of attendance of true “decisionmakers” who might be using the information generated by the program was readily apparent. If taking time to attend a three-day meeting is any indication of who the stakeholders of the CCSP are, the message is obvious: scientists and scientific agencies.
This poses a real problem for a program determined to make its research support decision making, in whatever topic. How can one hope to make a product that is useful to someone without some sense of the market, if you will, for that product? How can a workshop hope to provide useful feedback to program direction if the intended beneficiaries are largely absent? And how does feedback from such a workshop affect agency direction, compared with say, agency steering committees or panels of scientific peer reviewers? As Dr. Mahoney stated quite clearly at the conclusion of the conference, agencies themselves are responsible for the content of the CCSP: as to the funding-- “everything has to go that way” i.e. through the agencies. He acknowledged the limited influence that CSPO (the office that coordinates the CCSP) has in directing the work of the CCSP.
In another clear statement, Dr. Mahoney stated that the mandate of the CCSP is to do “research and observations,” not to be providing decision support. In fact, however, the Global Change Research Program Act specifically states that the program should “provide usable information on which to base policy decisions relating to global change.” This provides plenty of legal authority for program activities, including research and observations, being “usable” for decision making. And while the CSPO may not have the power to ensure the program is usable, the Committee (i.e. the agency managers) overseeing the program certainly does have the mandate to “consult with actual and potential users of the results of the Program to ensure that such results are useful in developing national and international policy responses to global change.”
Which brings me to my final observation. The final session of the meeting was devoted to setting priorities for the future. One of the discussion questions was “What information do we need to better support decision makers and refine CCSP’s future decision support priorities?” Several of the speakers presented interesting and thoughtful ideas for the future evolution of the program, including the need for evaluation of the use of information with respect to outcomes, the need for a dialogue on the appropriateness of CCSP activities to the public need, and the need to pay attention to scales and decision makers beyond the national governmental level. The response of Dr. Mahoney was to emphasize the limited influence of CSPO (his office that coordinates the CCSP), restate the focus of CCSP on research and observations, and to highlight the zero-growth budget prospects for the program, very frank although not very optimistic responses.
Although I certainly enjoyed aspects of the conference, and was pleased to see so many scientists earnestly working at this interface of creating scientific information that is usable to society, I ultimately left feeling that an opportunity had been lost. The amount of funding spent on the types of research highlighted at the conference such as regional integrated sciences and assessments, applications programs and the like is quite small, probably less than 5%, and that would be a generous estimate. The work relating to decision support is that is going on is often marginalized, and institutional structures and incentives for researchers are not well-aligned with providing usable science to improve societal outcomes. It is not clear that the CCSP has seriously taken on the challenge of decision support and how it relates to the current program structure and priorities. The optimist in me hopes that this type of transformation is possible, but it will take more than good intentions and words on a page. It will take leadership, prioritization, planning and political will.
Posted by lohausm at 09:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
HDGEC Vacancy Announcement -- IHDP
Vacancy Announcement
International Human Dimensions Programme On Global Environmental Change
Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme
The International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) invite applications for the position of Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). The IHDP is an international, interdisciplinary and non-governmental science organisation, focussing on social and human dimensions of environmental change.
The IHDP is dedicated to promoting, catalysing and coordinating research, capacity-building, and networking on the human dimensions of global environmental change. The IHDP, from a social science perspective, examines areas of concern for societies on global change and works at the interface between science and practice. For detailed information on the programme please visit the webpage www.ihdp.org
The Executive Director, in co-operation with the Scientific Committee and the Chairperson, facilitates the expeditious development, implementation and evaluation of the IHDP Programme. In particular, the Executive Director will:
* facilitate the development, implementation and co-ordination of IHDP Science Projects and Joint Projects with the partner programmes;
* provide overall management of the IHDP Secretariat (about 10 persons).
* promote the establishment and/or strengthening of national and regional human dimensions committees and research programmes;
* ensure effective representation and links between IHDP and other relevant research programmes, especially IGBP, WCRP, DIVERSITAS, the ESSP, the sponsoring organisations (ICSU and ISSC), relevant entities of the United Nations system, as well as the international policy community and funding agencies;
* support the development and implementation of an information strategy which promotes networking within the human dimensions research community and wider practice community;
The successful candidate will have an international research reputation in a relevant social science discipline and
* have experience and knowledge about the socio-economic, cultural, behavioural and institutional dimensions of the global environmental change research effort;
* have excellent skills in staff development, office
management and financial management skills;
* be aware of germane research in the natural sciences,
engineering and applied sciences;
* have experience of international scientific collaboration including, if possible, experience with both governmental and non-governmental organisations;
* be prepared to conduct extensive worldwide travel;
* excellent command of written and spoken English; knowledge of other languages is an advantage.
The Executive Director, will be appointed by ICSU and ISSC for an interim period of 12 months, potentially renewable, thereafter. The successful candidate will be employed in Bonn, Germany, where the IHDP Secretariat is located. An appointment under the terms of a secondment would also be possible. The position will be filled by 15 September 2005 or as soon as possible thereafter. The salary is negotiable and will take due account of the experience and qualifications of the candidate.
Letters of application with a curriculum vitae and the names of three
referees should be received no later than 15 June 2005 by the IHDP Secretariat, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 53113 Bonn, Fax +49 228 73 9054, e-mail: middel.ihdp@uni-bonn.de. Interviews for the post will be scheduled in July 2005. Further information on the IHDP and its Secretariat Dr.Barbara Goebel: Tel: +49-228-73-9051, Fax: +49-228-73-9054; e~mail:goebel.ihdp@uni-bonn.de; www.ihdp.org
Posted by ldilling at 03:06 PM | Comments (0)