Connecting scientific communities with journalists and media across Europe

EuroScitizen WG4 aims to describe good practices to better link scientific communities with journalists and the media, and consequently to present powerful, stimulating and effective messages that can help strengthen the public understanding of scientific literacy and evolution in particular. To accomplish this (WG4 deliverable 1), a a descriptive Europe-wide survey was implemented, and a Short Term Scientific Mission (STSM) was carried out to build the data matrix for analysis, prepare the analysis and to perform a first descriptive analysis. The data shown on the poster are our first outputs and suggest how a further analysis can develop, review and generate materials and/or new data regarding this topic. Our purpose is that this approach will permit identifying good practices to facilitate an improved dialogue between scientists, journalists and the media. Poster presented at EuroScitizen Sustainability meeting, 20-22 June 2022, Aveiro, Portuga

The Sharing Economy in Norway: Emerging Trends and Debates

2019 was a year when the sharing economy and collaborative consumption was starting to make a significant impact on Norwegian society and way of life. With international hospitality and mobility services leading the way, several home-grown digital platforms also saw noticeable growth in users and income. New legislation was put in place to support an orderly transition to an economy that makes better use of idle resources. While the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has dealt a major temporary setback to this development, this chapter documents how the Norwegian economy was experiencing rapid change that may soon return

Review of policy instruments for climate-smart mountain forestry

Implementing the Climate-Smart Forestry (CSF) concept into practice requires interaction among key stakeholders, especially forest owners and managers, policymakers (or regulators in general), forest consultants, and forest users. But what could be the most effective policy instruments to achieve climate smartness in mountain forests? Which ones would be the most acceptable for forest owners? And for the local forest communities? Should they be designed and implemented with the use of participatory approaches or rather on a top-down basis? This chapter summarizes key policy instruments structured in three subsequent categories: commandand-control, voluntary market-based instruments, and community cooperation. It provides examples of their functioning in the forestry sector and discusses their suitability for the implementation of climate smart forestry. It appears that there are many policy instruments used with varying degrees of success such as forest concessions or voluntary certifcation schemes. A wide range of instruments are responding to direct regulation; this has been seen as insuffcient to deal with natural hazards and calamities.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bærekraftig verdiskaping i verdsarvområde

Lokal verdiskaping basert på utmarka i verdsarvområda Vestlandsk fjordlandskap kan ikkje sjåast isolert, men er tett knytt til heile samfunnsutviklinga på desse stadene. Det tradisjonelle landbruket i desse områda har skapt verdfulle naturgode som biologisk mangfald, opne turområde med høg rekreasjonsverdi, turstiar og anna. Fleire av desse naturgoda er viktige for reiselivsnæringa. Kulturlandskapet er også viktig for verdsarvstatusen i seg sjølv, ettersom dette er ein viktig del av kjerneverdiane til området (OUV). Utviklinga i landbruket gjer at tungdrivne areal også i verdsarvområda går ut av bruk. Opphøyr eller låg bruksintensitet går spesielt ut over utmarksressursane og dei seminaturlege naturtypane. Utmarka i Geirangerfjordområdet er særleg trua, da tradisjonell bruk med beiting, slått og hausting no i stor grad har teke slutt, og naturtypane gror att med buskar og kratt. Gjengroing fører til tap av variasjon, artar og økologiske funksjonar. Intensivering av landbruket vil også forringe naturverdiane og landskapskvalitetane. For at landbruket ikkje berre skal vere eit «kulisselandbruk», men vere del av eit berekraftig driftssystem, må tilgjengelege arealressursar på innmark og utmark nyttast til matproduksjon og andre livsviktige økosystemtenester. Gjeldande landbrukspolitikk, med mål om stordrift og effektivisering av matproduksjonen, er ei sterkare drivkraft enn dei tiltaka som er sett inn for å bremse og motverke at tungdrivne areal går ut av bruk i verdsarvområda. Den lokale turist- og reiselivsnæringa kan også hamne i noko av same marginaliserte situasjonen som landbruksnæringa fordi dei ikkje lenger er dei mest sentrale aktørane. Eksterne aktørar representert ved cruiseindustri, turbussar og storskala reisearrangørar er ofte i enda større grad premissleverandørar. Det trengs ei heilskapleg tilnærming for å løyse utfordringane. Ein prosess som forskyv maktbalansen frå eksterne aktørar innan masseturisme og i retning lokalt næringsliv og verdiskaping og som inkluderer innbyggjarane, krev nytenking, utvikling av nye forretningsmodellar og evne til gjennomføring gjennom demokratiske planprosessar. Av ulike konkrete verkemiddel som kan prøvast ut, men da helst som element i ein større endringsprosess, vil vi peike på særskilde landbrukspolitiske verkemiddel i retning sveitsisk modell, turistskatt, anna betaling for fellesgode og bygdeutviklingsprosjekt som kan gi auka tilflytting og ny næringsaktivitet. Dialog og partnarskapsbygging kan fremme ansvarleg medverknad. Forskingsbehova for verdsarvområda og tilsvarande område med store og unytta ressursar i utmarka er mange, og arbeidsgruppa si vurdering er summert og konkretisert i denne rapporten

Developing non-formal learning activities focused on increasing evolutionary knowledge and scientific literacy

Non-formal learning activities have an important role in continuous education of the general audience, and thus provide an essential element in increasing evolutionary knowledge and scientific literacy for European citizens, beyond the formal schooling. This guide brings together explanations of how non-formal learning can be designed, with special emphasis on evaluating the activities. The guide describes common activity types and examples encountered in our scoping conducted via surveys, personal contacts, and literature and internet search. It also provides reflection points for practitioners (activity designers, educators, science communicators) to embed evaluation as a form of engaging activity participants, as well as a tool to assess the impact and improve practice.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)

Evolution is a key concept of biology, fundamental to understand the world and address important societal problems, but research studies show that it is still not widely understood and accepted. Several factors are known to influence evolution acceptance and understanding, but little information is available regarding the impacts of the curriculum on these aspects. Very few curricula have been examined to assess the coverage of biological evolution. The available studies do not allow comparative analyses, due to the different methodologies employed by the authors. However, such an analysis would be useful for research purposes and for the development of appropriate educational policies to address the problem of a lack of evolution acceptance in some countries. In this paper we describe the steps through which we developed a valid and reliable instrument for curricula analysis known as FACE: “Framework to Assess the Coverage of biological Evolution by school curricula.” This framework was developed based on the “Understanding Evolution Conceptual Framework” (UECF). After an initial pilot study, our framework was reformulated based on identified issues and experts’ opinions. To generate validity and reliability evidence in support of the framework, it was applied to four European countries’ curricula. For each country, a team of a minimum of two national and two foreign coders worked independently to assess the curriculum using this framework for content analysis. Reliability evidence was estimated using Krippendorf's alpha and resulted in appropriate values for coding the examined curricula. Some issues that coders faced during the analysis were discussed and, to ensure better reliability for future researchers, additional guidelines and one extra category were included in the framework. The final version of the framework includes six categories and 34 subcategories. FACE is a useful tool for the analysis and the comparison of curricula and school textbooks regarding the coverage of evolution, and such results can guide curricula development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Correction to: Development and validation of a framework for the assessment of school curricula on the presence of evolutionary concepts (FACE)

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Connecting media and scientists - Euroscitizen WG4

EuroScitizen COST Action is a research network which aims to identify targeted strategies that will raise levels of scientific literacy in Europe using evolution as a model. Euroscitizen Media Working Group (WG4) aims to describe good practices to better link scientific communities with journalists and the media, and consequently present powerful, stimulating and effective messages that can help strengthen the public understanding of scientific literacy and evolution in particular. In this poster, we present the aims and activities developed by WG4 as well as a description of its Action deliverables. Poster presented at EuroScitizen Sustainability meeting, 20-22 June 2022, Aveiro, Portuga

PESFOR-W: Improving the design and environmental effectiveness of woodlands for water Payments for Ecosystem Services

ABSTRACT: The EU Water Framework Directive aims to ensure restoration of Europe?s water bodies to ?good ecological status? by 2027. Many Member States will struggle to meet this target, with around half of EU river catchments currently reporting below standard water quality. Diffuse pollution from agriculture represents a major pressure, affecting over 90% of river basins. Accumulating evidence shows that recent improvements to agricultural practices are benefiting water quality but in many cases will be insufficient to achieve WFD objectives. There is growing support for land use change to help bridge the gap, with a particular focus on targeted tree planting to intercept and reduce the delivery of diffuse pollutants to water. This form of integrated catchment management offers multiple benefits to society but a significant cost to landowners and managers. New economic instruments, in combination with spatial targeting, need to be developed to ensure cost effective solutions - including tree planting for water benefits - are realised. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) are flexible, incentive-based mechanisms that could play an important role in promoting land use change to deliver water quality targets. The PESFOR-W COST Action will consolidate learning from existing woodlands for water PES schemes in Europe and help standardize approaches to evaluating the environmental effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of woodland measures. It will also create a European network through which PES schemes can be facilitated, extended and improved, for example by incorporating other ecosystem services linking with aims of the wider forestscarbon policy nexus