Transforming climate policy making and implementation: Co-constructing knowledge to empower and engage diverse actors towards transformation ocean-climate action and policy
Phase 1, Work Package 4, Cluster 3.2 of Transforming Climate Action
Principal Investigators: Sandra Toze, Bertrum MacDonald
Our research examines how evidence, information, and diverse forms of knowledge are produced, communicated, and used in climate policy-making and implementation, with a particular focus on coastal and ocean-climate action. Despite the growing volume of credible climate evidence, its uptake in public policy and practice remains uneven. Complex decision-making processes, competing priorities, politicisation, and barriers within information pathways can all influence whether evidence reaches decision-makers in useful and timely ways.
The project uses mixed and participatory methodologies to investigate:
- How do decision-makers select evidence for policy development and implementations? How should evidence be communicated to foster uptake in decisions?
- What enables or limits the use of evidence?
- What roles do formal and informal information pathways play?
- What knowledge is being produced, disseminated, and used, by whom?
- What perspectives are over- or under-represented in the knowledge produced and mobilized?
To answer these questions, we have launched the following projects:
Systematic Map
Project team: Alexandre Legault, Erin Keast, Sandra Toze, Bertrum MacDonald, Andrea Belen, Jaime Walsh, Liz Wilson
A protocol is in development for a systematic map examining the literature on the processes through which local governments engage with evidence in coastal adaptation policy-making. The map will identify how evidence is being considered in local climate adaptation decision-making.
Municipal Case Studies
Municipal governments are critical actors in climate adaptation, particularly in coastal communities, yet relatively little research has examined how evidence is identified, evaluated, and used in municipal policy-making. These case studies investigate how coastal municipalities engage with evidence, the barriers and enablers affecting its uptake, and opportunities to strengthen connections between research and policy.
The research uses a participatory, co-creative approach. Municipal staff and other stakeholders will help shape research questions, methodologies, and recommendations, recognizing that evidence encompasses diverse forms of scientific, social science, humanities, local, and Indigenous knowledge. The work also considers the broader multi-level governance context in which municipalities operate and examines the role of policy entrepreneurs in climate policy processes.
Case Study 1 – Lunenberg
Project team: Alexandre Legault, Sandra Toze, Bertrum MacDonald
This case study examines coastal adaptation decision-making across the five municipalities of the historical County of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. It explores how municipal practitioners identify, record, retrieve, evaluate, trust, and use information when developing coastal adaptation policies.
The research has been informed by a co-production workshop with 12 practitioners from five sectors held in July 2025, as well as ongoing participation in the Green Shores Program’s Local Government Working Group.
New Edition of Science-Policy for Effective Coastal and Ocean Management
Project team: Sandra Toze, Bertrum MacDonald, Jaime Walsh, Erin Keast, Liz Wilson
Work has begun on a proposal for a new edition of Science, Information, and Policy Interface for Effective Coastal and Ocean Management, building on the open-access volume published in 2016.
The first edition provided an overview of key topics critical to understanding the challenges of communicating scientific information in coastal and ocean management. Much has changed since its publication. The new edition will focus on the role of effective coastal and ocean management in transformative climate action, while examining changes in the information landscape, including the increase in misinformation and the impact of artificial intelligence, as well as the increasing politicisation of policy processes.
A key goal is to highlight the increasing diversity and interdisciplinarity of researchers working at the science-policy interface and to bring together diverse perspectives on the production, communication, and use of information and knowledge for coastal and ocean management.