Towards a reflexive turn in the governance of global environmental expertise the cases of the IPCC and the IPBES

The role and design of global expert organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) needs rethinking. Acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all model does not exist, we suggest a reflexive turn that implies treating the governance of expertise as a matter of political contestation

Who speaks for the future of Earth? How critical social science can extend the conversation on the Anthropocene

This paper asks how the social sciences can engage with the idea of the Anthropocene in productive ways. In response to this question we outline an interpretative research agenda that allows critical engagement with the Anthropocene as a socially and culturally bounded object with many possible meanings and political trajectories. In order to facilitate the kind of political mobilization required to meet the complex environmental challenges of our times, we argue that the social sciences should refrain from adjusting to standardized research agendas and templates. A more urgent analytical challenge lies in exposing, challenging and extending the ontological assumptions that inform how we make sense of and respond to a rapidly changing environment. By cultivating environmental research that opens up multiple interpretations of the Anthropocene, the social sciences can help to extend the realm of the possible for environmental politics

Stabilisation operationalised : using time series analysis to understand the dynamics of research collaboration

The aim of the paper is to investigate the use of online data and time series analysis, in order to study the dynamics of new types of research collaboration in a systematic way. Two international research teams were studied for more than 3 years, and quantitative data about their internet use together with observation of their collaboration patterns were gathered. Time series analysis (ARIMA modelling) was performed on their use of internet, and specific types of models related to specific ways of conducting research at a distance. The paper proposes the use of online data and ARIMA models to identify the stabilisation of a complex system, such as a research team, and investigate everyday research practices

Research productivity in the era of the internet revisited

In distributed research teams, internet is used for coordination, exchange of resources and sharing work, with the underlying assumption that internet use increases research productivity. The purpose of the article is to investigate this assumption in the context of two distributed research teams, with different coordination and management needs. The results suggest that the positive impact of internet use on research productivity is limited and may only be relevant only when collaborative endeavours suffer coordination problems. At the same time, meetings prove the most important predictor of research productivity. Implications are drawn for the management of distributed research teams

Stakeholder consultations in the energy directorate : can they help integrate climate change?

Investigation of the conditions under which formal stakeholder consultations of the Directorate General Energy of the European Commission can help integrate climate change policy in energy policy in the European Union suggests that stakeholder consultations that aim at producing soft law and binding recommendations are rather insular, have low diversity of participants, and do not integrate climate change issues. Forums that aim at providing a discussion platform have higher diversity and integrate climate change issues to a certain extent. Stakeholder consultations can facilitate climate policy integration in European Union energy policy, as they take place early in the policy process. However, integration requires political commitment, and a concrete structure and format of the consultations that would facilitate integration

The creation of the climategate hype in blogs and newspapers : mixed methods approach

Purpose – Research into the emergence of a hype requires a mixed methods approach that takes into account both the evolution over time and mutual influences across different types of media. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodological approach to detect an emerging hype in online communications. Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) time series modelling and semantic co-word networks, and this combination of methods provides a view on the emergence and development of a hype at the level of mutual influences across a heterogeneous set of newspaper and blog data. The subject scope of the paper is the climategate hype. The climategate hype was triggered by the online publication of a set of hacked e-mails belonging to climate researchers at the East Anglia University in November 2009. Findings – The main findings show that the climategate hype was initiated in the blogs, and the newspapers were reacting to the blogs. At the level of semantics, the blogs and the newspapers framed the issue from opposite perspectives. Research limitations/implications – The combination of methods contributes theoretical insights to how blogs interact with more traditional media on hype generation and methodological insights to internet researchers investigating emergent online hypes. The method calls for further validation. Practical implications – Investigating the emergence and evolution of a hype, and the interaction of the two media is relevant for journalists in becoming more reflexive in their practices and the cues from the outside world. Originality/value – The paper is novel in its combination of the two specific methods, ARIMA time series modelling and co-word networks and its attempt to identify the media origins of a hype, and especially the interaction between blogs and newspapers

Studying dynamic social processes with ARIMA modelling

With the increasing use of information and communication technologies, there is a wealth of longitudinal data available, which open up new research directions. This availability necessitates special analytical tools, namely time series analysis methods. The paper focuses on Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling and provides an outline of how it can be used in social sciences to study dynamic social processes. It provides a typology of dynamics of social processes, using the distinctions between stability vs. fluctuation of a communication process and exogenous vs. endogenous changes. Five distinct types of dynamics of social processes are outlined: stability; linear trend; different attractors; permanent effect; and not permanent effect. Further, the paper examines how these types can be analyzed with the use of ARIMA modeling, and what this means for understanding of the underlying social process. Conclusions are drawn for the use of ARIMA in social sciences, and for understanding of dynamics of social processes