Crossing the Divide: Engaging scientists and policy-makers in adapting forest management to climate change in British Columbia

2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (01) ◽  
pp. 89-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy E. Prescott ◽  
Kristine Weese

The Future Forest Ecosystems Scientific Council (FFESC) was created in 2008 following a one-time allocation of funding from the BC provincial government to support research that would inform adaptation of BC’s current forest management policies to a changing climate. A key goal of the council was to maximize the utility of the research to inform provincial policy. The eightstep process that we developed to achieve this goal is described in this paper. In roughly chronological order, the eight steps were: determining the research needed to inform policy, connecting scientists and policy-makers, requiring interdisciplinary teams including both natural and social scientists and relevant stakeholders, assessing proposals for their value to inform policy, fostering scientific excellence, fostering ongoing communication between scientists and policy-makers, tailoring communication to policy-makers, and disseminating the policy-relevant outcomes in a timely and targeted manner. Based on the FFESC experience, we suggest best practices for engaging policy-makers in research and scientists in policy development and adaptation.

2007 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 689-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Ashton ◽  
Ted Needham ◽  
Tom Beckley

To determine how forest policy is developed, the perceptions of senior policy-makers involved in developing the New Brunswick protected natural areas policy were examined. They represented three main stakeholder groups: the New Brunswick provincial government, forest industry, and environmental organizations. Three analytical methods revealed the evolution of events over time, recurring themes, and the use of social power. The results suggest that development of forest policy is facilitated when both forest science and human values are taken into account, when information is shared among stakeholders, and when a "win–win" solution is sought. Key words: forest policy development, New Brunswick, power, protected areas policy, qualitative research, stakeholders


Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Loucks

Water resource management policies impact how water supplies are protected, collected, stored, treated, distributed, and allocated among multiple users and purposes. Water resource policies influence the decisions made regarding the siting, design, and operation of infrastructure needed to achieve the underlying goals of these policies. Water management policies vary by region depending on particular hydrologic, economic, environmental, and social conditions, but in all cases they will have multiple impacts affecting these conditions. Science can provide estimates of various economic, ecologic, environmental, and even social impacts of alternative policies, impacts that determine how effective any particular policy may be. These impact estimates can be used to compare and evaluate alternative policies in the search for identifying the best ones to implement. Among all scientists providing inputs to policy making processes are analysts who develop and apply models that provide these estimated impacts and, possibly, their probabilities of occurrence. However, just producing them is not a guarantee that they will be considered by policy makers. This paper reviews various aspects of the science-policy interface and factors that can influence what information policy makers need from scientists. This paper suggests some ways scientists and analysts can contribute to and inform those making water management policy decisions. Brief descriptions of some water management policy making examples illustrate some successes and failures of science informing and influencing policy.


2021 ◽  
pp. 048661342199044
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Zhun Xu

This paper studies the historical evolution of China’s gender relations through the lens of housework time allocation. In particular, we highlight the role played by social class and income. Drawing upon data from the Chinese Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that during the period 1991–2011, being a peasant or earning less than the spouse was increasingly associated with a higher share of housework. The market process appears to have indirectly improved the social status of women (most likely rural women) married to peasant husbands as measured by the former’s declining housework share. Such changes, however, have not challenged traditional patriarchal norms in the countryside and have even facilitated the rise of a new market-based patriarchy. Policy makers should empower women by tackling the different faces of patriarchy as a whole. JEL Classification: B51, J16, P16


1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (S6) ◽  
pp. 33-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly J. McCammon

Historians and social scientists often investigate the conditions that influence the occurrence of particular events. For instance, a researcher might be concerned with the causes of revolutionary action in some countries or the forces that unleash racial rioting in major cities. Or perhaps the researcher wishes to examine why industrial workers decide to strike or what prompts policy-makers to pass new legislation. In each of these examples, a qualitative shift occurs, from a circumstance without racial rioting in a particular city, for instance, to one with racial rioting. Event history analysis can aid researchers in uncovering the conditions that lead to such a shift.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 1870-1878
Author(s):  
S Meaghan Sim ◽  
Sara FL Kirk

AbstractObjectiveHealthy Eating Nova Scotia represents the first provincial comprehensive healthy eating strategy in Canada and a strategy that is framed within a population-health model. Five years after strategy launch, our objective was to evaluate Healthy Eating Nova Scotia to determine perceptions of strategy implementation and strategy outputs. The focus of the current paper is on the findings of this evaluation.DesignWe conducted an evaluation of the strategy through three activities that included a document review, survey of key stakeholders and in-depth interviews with key strategy informants. The findings from each of the activities were integrated to determine what has worked well with strategy implementation, what could be improved and what outputs have resulted.SettingThe evaluation was conducted in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.ParticipantsParticipants for this evaluation included survey respondents (n 120) and key informants (n 16). A total of 156 documents were also reviewed.ResultsSignificant investments have been made towards inter-sectoral partnerships and resourcing that has provided the necessary leadership and momentum for the strategy. Policy development has been leveraged through the strategy primarily in the health and education sectors and is perceived as a visible success. Clarity of human resource roles and funding within the context of a provincial strategy may be beneficial for continued strategy implementation, as is expansion of policy development.ConclusionsKnown to be the first evaluation of its kind, these findings and related considerations will be of interest to policy makers developing and implementing similar strategies in their own jurisdictions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dohyeong Kim ◽  
Yingyuan Zhang ◽  
Chang Kil Lee

Despite growing popularity of using geographical information systems and geospatial tools in public health fields, these tools are only rarely implemented in health policy management in China. This study examines the barriers that could prevent policy-makers from applying such tools to actual managerial processes related to public health problems that could be assisted by such approaches, e.g. evidence-based policy-making. A questionnaire-based survey of 127 health-related experts and other stakeholders in China revealed that there is a consensus on the needs and demands for the use of geospatial tools, which shows that there is a more unified opinion on the matter than so far reported. Respondents pointed to lack of communication and collaboration among stakeholders as the most significant barrier to the implementation of geospatial tools. Comparison of survey results to those emanating from a similar study in Bangladesh revealed different priorities concerning the use of geospatial tools between the two countries. In addition, the follow-up in-depth interviews highlighted the political culture specific to China as a critical barrier to adopting new tools in policy development. Other barriers included concerns over the limited awareness of the availability of advanced geospatial tools. Taken together, these findings can facilitate a better understanding among policy-makers and practitioners of the challenges and opportunities for widespread adoption and implementation of a geospatial approach to public health policy-making in China.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1442 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Richard Gold ◽  
Sarah E. Ali-Khan ◽  
Liz Allen ◽  
Lluis Ballell ◽  
Manoel Barral-Netto ◽  
...  

Serious concerns about the way research is organized collectively are increasingly being raised. They include the escalating costs of research and lower research productivity, low public trust in researchers to report the truth, lack of diversity, poor community engagement, ethical concerns over research practices, and irreproducibility. Open science (OS) collaborations comprise of a set of practices including open access publication, open data sharing and the absence of restrictive intellectual property rights with which institutions, firms, governments and communities are experimenting in order to overcome these concerns. We gathered two groups of international representatives from a large variety of stakeholders to construct a toolkit to guide and facilitate data collection about OS and non-OS collaborations. Ultimately, the toolkit will be used to assess and study the impact of OS collaborations on research and innovation. The toolkit contains the following four elements: 1) an annual report form of quantitative data to be completed by OS partnership administrators; 2) a series of semi-structured interview guides of stakeholders; 3) a survey form of participants in OS collaborations; and 4) a set of other quantitative measures best collected by other organizations, such as research foundations and governmental or intergovernmental agencies. We opened our toolkit to community comment and input. We present the resulting toolkit for use by government and philanthropic grantors, institutions, researchers and community organizations with the aim of measuring the implementation and impact of OS partnership across these organizations. We invite these and other stakeholders to not only measure, but to share the resulting data so that social scientists and policy makers can analyse the data across projects.


Sustainable energy is described as energy that meets the present demand without jeopardizing the needs of future generation. Sustainable development of energy has become the main focus of recent national policies, strategies and development plans of many countries. Renewable energy (RE) is brought to play as it is deemed sustainable and has the potential to thrive in the vastly competitive market of contemporary business. Growing deployment of RE resources in businesses will provide an impetus to accelerate the drive towards clean energy as well as interest and funding for research and development works. In Malaysia, RE was introduced into the energy mix through the Five Fuel Diversification Policy in 2000 and its share has been growing ever since. This article offers a critical analysis of the developing theories linking environmental sustainability to businesses practice, and discusses their implications on Malaysia’s policy development toward RE. The extensive review presented in this work offers a useful reference for policy makers, corporate managers and researchers who have vested interest in business sustainability and renewable energy related studies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikoleta Jones ◽  
Chrysi Gleridou ◽  
Panayiotis G. Dimitrakopoulos ◽  
Konstantinos I. Evangelinos

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