While it is generally recognized that socio-ecological approaches to Environmental Impact Assessments require social science and humanities perspectives in order to address scientific, technological, managerial, policy, and governance challenges facing assessment processes in Canada, the engagement of expertise from the social sciences and humanities is often lacking. Dr. Ian Stewart, a faculty member in the […]
Public Policy & Decision-Making
Improving the Use of Climate Change Information in Mitigation and Adaptation Decision-Making: A Book Review
Why are policy measures for climate change mitigation and adaptation being implemented at such a slow pace, especially when significant efforts are being made to generate climate change information? Communicating Climate Change Information for Decision-Making strives to answer this very important question. In their introduction, editors Silvia Serrao-Neumann, Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, […]
The Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale: Dr. Kim Davies at the 2018 Bay of Fundy Science Workshop
At the recent 12th biennial BoFEP Science Workshop, Dr. Kimberley Davies, a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Oceanography at Dalhousie University in Halifax, known for long-time work on North Atlantic right whales, presented the opening keynote lecture: “An Uncertain Future: The Right Whale’s Fight against Environment, Biology, and Ocean Urbanization.” The Bay of Fundy […]
EIUI Research Project: Criteria for Assessing Working Group Approaches for Informing Decision-Making in Public Policy
Many issues continue to cause severe changes to ocean environments and may be classified as “wicked” problems. At the same time, extensive scientific information exists that has the potential to inform management and policy in addressing the issues. However, a challenge persists in translating this information into usable forms for decision makers to make informed […]
EIUI Team Member Cited in Nature Article about the High Seas
In an article in the 9th May 2018 issue of Nature, Olive Heffernan explores issues about the protection of unregulated high seas ecosystems in advance of the United Nations treaty negotiation meetings in New York in September. With the possibility of a United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) add-on treaty laying […]
Assessing Research Use in Policy and Decision-Making Contexts: The Importance of Models
The relationships between research and policy and research and practice have been theorized in different ways. Several models have been conceptualized over time, which provide different frameworks for thinking about and understanding the research use process (Nutley, Walter, & Davies, 2007a). These models take several complexities into consideration that forms of research use can take […]
Public Participation in Policy: A More Inclusive Approach to Decision Making
The field of policy making can be influenced by a host of government agencies, interest groups, associations, and social movements, both on a domestic and global scale (Pal, 2010). Considering that the range of players involved depends on the issue at hand, policy literatures have introduced the two concepts of policy community and policy network […]
EIUI Team Members Publish a Paper on Key Characteristics of a Communication Network in Marine Resource Development
Public policy decisions are frequently made within complex interconnecting networks of many stakeholders. Decisions about environmental problems, for example, often involve an extensive array of different participants. In an effort to influence policy decisions, these individuals, groups, and organizations participate in networks to gain an understanding of the issues and to ensure their (sometimes competing) […]
Can Research on the Diffusion of Innovations Offer Insights about Enablers and Barriers to Information Use?
The body of literature focused on the enablers and barriers to research use is extensive and insightful. Nutley, Walter, and Davies rightfully categorize the literature as providing “a rich source of theories and evidence that can be mined to inform strategies for promoting research use” (2007, p. 192). Numerous mechanisms such as dissemination, interaction, and […]
Communication of Research Information: Information Pathways and Models
While many policy makers and practitioners heavily rely on information from the scientific community for their decision making, research about activities at the science-policy interface shows that information use is often not straightforward. Despite the large amounts of scientific information available to policy-makers and practitioners, there are still calls for more “useful” information to be […]