Towards better integration of environmental science in society: lessons from BONUS, the joint Baltic Sea environmental research and development programme

Integration of environmental science in society is impeded by the large gap between science and policy that is characterised by weaknesses in societal relevance and dissemination of science and its practical implementation in policy. We analyse experiences from BONUS, the policy-driven joint Baltic Sea research and development programme (2007–2020), which is part of the European Research Area (ERA) and involves combined research funding by eight EU member states. The ERA process decreased fragmentation of Baltic Sea science and BONUS funding increased the scientific quality and societal relevance of Baltic Sea science and strengthened the science-policy interface. Acknowledging the different drivers for science producers (academic career, need for funding, peer review) and science users (fast results fitting policy windows), and realising that most scientists aim at building conceptual understanding rather than instrumental use, bridges can be built through strategic planning, coordination and integration. This requires strong programme governance stretching far beyond selecting projects for funding, such as coaching, facilitating the sharing of infrastructure and data and iterative networking within and between science producer and user groups in all programme phases. Instruments of critical importance for successful science-society integration were identified as: (1) coordinating a strategic research agenda with strong inputs from science, policy and management, (2) providing platforms where science and policy can meet, (3) requiring cooperation between scientists to decrease fragmentation, increase quality, clarify uncertainties and increase consensus about environmental problems, (4) encouraging and supporting scientists in disseminating their results through audience-tailored channels, and (5) funding not only primary research but also synthesis projects that evaluate the scientific findings and their practical use in society – in close cooperation with science users − to enhance relevance, credibility and legitimacy of environmental science and expand its practical implementation

Third Revolution Digital Technology in Disaster Early Warning

Networking societies with electronic based technologies can change social morphology, where key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed information networks. The application of information and communications technologies (ICT) has been shown to have a positive impact across the emergency or disaster lifecycle. For example, utility of mobile, internet and social network technology, commercial and amateur radio networks, television and video networks and open access technologies for processing data and distributing information can be highlighted. Early warning is the key function during an emergency. Early warning system is an interrelated set of hazard warning, risk assessment, communication and preparedness activities that enable individuals, communities, businesses and others to take timely action to reduce their risks. Third revolution digital technology with semantic features such as standard protocols can facilitate standard data exchange therefore proactive decision making. As a result, people belong to any given hierarchy can access the information simultaneously and make decisions on their own challenging the traditional power relations. Within this context, this paper attempts to explore the use of third revolution digital technology for improving early warning

A Trust-based Recruitment Framework for Multi-hop Social Participatory Sensing

The idea of social participatory sensing provides a substrate to benefit from friendship relations in recruiting a critical mass of participants willing to attend in a sensing campaign. However, the selection of suitable participants who are trustable and provide high quality contributions is challenging. In this paper, we propose a recruitment framework for social participatory sensing. Our framework leverages multi-hop friendship relations to identify and select suitable and trustworthy participants among friends or friends of friends, and finds the most trustable paths to them. The framework also includes a suggestion component which provides a cluster of suggested friends along with the path to them, which can be further used for recruitment or friendship establishment. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed recruitment framework in terms of selecting a large number of well-suited participants and providing contributions with high overall trust, in comparison with one-hop recruitment architecture.Comment: accepted in DCOSS 201

Providing Access to Safe Water: Lessons Learned from Two Decades of Philanthropic Investment in the Rural Poor

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation has been a leading U.S. funder for increasing safe water access for over 20 years. The author reflects on that history to describe valuable lessons, especially on partnership (in the context of West Africa Water Initiative), and how to think strategically in the long- and short-term about efficient and sustainable WASH funding

Center-commissioned external review of International Water Management Institute: Consolidated report, 19-29 May 2003

Agricultural research / Research institutes / Research policy / Research priorities / Planning / Monitoring / Evaluation / Financial resources / Gender

Assessment and mitigation of droughts in South-West Asia: issues and prospects

Drought / Monitoring / Assessment / Risks / Analysis / Decision support tools / Policy / Institutions / Social aspects / Economic aspects / Water harvesting / Asia

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2005

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2005

The function of remote sensing in support of environmental policy

Limited awareness of environmental remote sensing’s potential ability to support environmental policy development constrains the technology’s utilization. This paper reviews the potential of earth observation from the perspective of environmental policy. A literature review of “remote sensing and policy” revealed that while the number of publications in this field increased almost twice as rapidly as that of remote sensing literature as a whole (15.3 versus 8.8% yr−1), there is apparently little academic interest in the societal contribution of environmental remote sensing. This is because none of the more than 300 peer reviewed papers described actual policy support. This paper describes and discusses the potential, actual support, and limitations of earth observation with respect to supporting the various stages of environmental policy development. Examples are given of the use of remote sensing in problem identification and policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy control and evaluation. While initially, remote sensing contributed primarily to the identification of environmental problems and policy implementation, more recently, interest expanded to applications in policy control and evaluation. The paper concludes that the potential of earth observation to control and evaluate, and thus assess the efficiency and effectiveness of policy, offers the possibility of strengthening governance