© UKCIP 2011 Learning and Informing Practice: The role of knowledge exchange Roger B Street Technical Director Friday, 25 th November 2011 Crew Project – Final General Assembly

© UKCIP Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate (ARCC) Coordination Network  Enhance cooperative development and dissemination of research among and beyond the portfolio of funded built environment and infrastructure research projects  Promote end-user and researcher engagement  Maximise the potential benefits of the research to all end users through broadening engagement and targeted dissemination – pathways to impacts  Facilitate the further exploration of related knowledge and knowledge gaps.

© UKCIP Coordination Network

© UKCIP Lessons Learned from Past Experiences Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate Sustaining Knowledge for a Changing Climate 2006 – 2007 Lessons: Clearly defined governance and management arrangements at the outset Effective overarching mechanisms – for engaging stakeholders, for integrating research and stakeholders, and for knowledge exchange Clearly defined communication and dissemination strategy at the outset Stakeholders with defined and active roles within and across the research projects UKCIP and EPSRC working with successful proponents to ensure that the right stakeholders are appropriately engaged and that required mechanisms and procedures are in place at the project level.

© UKCIP Lessons Learned from Past Experience Stakeholder Engagement  Need to bring the community together to enhance exchange and learning from across the research projects  Drawing knowledge from and influencing relevant research  Need for more focused activities around areas of common interest – themes and geographic areas of interest  Themes: overheating, extremes, decision support tools, mitigation- adaptation link, water as a resource and service  Policy areas, societal groups: nations (e.g., Scotland), regions (e.g., London) and communities  Stakeholders have different needs, expectations and capabilities in terms of engagement and needs for evidence  Coordination of stakeholder engagement – research projects with the same stakeholders

© UKCIP Knowledge Exchange A two-way process where scientists and decision and policy makers share learning, ideas, experience and knowledge to enhance the impacts of research – inform policy and practice Benefits: For researchers  Informing and improving the quality of the research;  Enhancing understanding of research users and their needs; and  Applying evidence-based knowledge to inform policy and practice issues. For those using research:  Accessing experts (advice) and (cutting-edge) and evidence to inform policy and practice  Accessing innovative ideas that could improve policy and practice; and  Enhancing organisational creativity, performance and productivity © UKCIP 2011

© UKCIP Informing Policy and Practice User-relevant evidence  Evidence that can inform policy and practice  Additional to that required by the academic community  Evidence that can inform where progress is needed and can be made  Evidence that can inform choices, including the implications for tradeoffs  Evidence that can inform understanding or risks of actions and inaction Need to engage the target users of research when developing evidence and the resulting messages  Who comprise these targeted user communities?  Implications of localism and co-generation of policy  Changing needs for evidence reflecting the evolving nature and scope of policy and practice and of users of evidence © UKCIP 2011

© UKCIP Characteristics of User-Relevant Evidence Appropriate language for the user community  Clear articulation of the issue being addressed  Clear articulation of evidence, including relative to existing evidence and rationalising of differences  Clear articulation of the assumptions, limitations and basis of the evidence Evidence in the context of decision-making practices  Useable within decision and policy-making practices – able to inform those practices and processes  Recognises that decisions are not made in isolation  Need to inform a number of related policies and practices  Reference to exceeding of known thresholds or to known sensitivities, and relative risks (including relative role of climate variability and change as drivers of change) © UKCIP 2011

© UKCIP Characteristics of User-Relevant Evidence Evidence that informs consideration of actions  Costs and benefits of proposed action – quantification of benefits of options  Barriers to, and opportunities for, action  Informs selection of among options and priorities  Existing adaptation deficit and low adaptive capacity  Urgency  Interdependencies  Implications for other policy and practice issues (e.g., inequities)  Allows for consideration of uncertainties as part of the decision and policy making processes – framed in the context of options for action Engagement of the targeted audience in the development of evidence and the evidence messages and their dissemination © UKCIP 2011

© UKCIP ARCC CN as part of Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) – 22 organisations that fund, carry out and use environmental research  Aims to ensure that decision makers in government, business and society have the knowledge, foresight and tools to mitigate, adapt to and benefit from environmental change Knowledge exchange and engagement are key to delivery ARCC CN will be working with the CREW and the broader ARCC CN research and end-user communities:  To enhance the impacts of ARCC CN research projects for decision-makers through targeted knowledge exchange.  Your input today will inform these activities © UKCIP 2011

© UKCIP Benefiting from Final CREW General Assembly Opportunity to consider the outputs from CREW research  Which are the important evidence messages you see coming from this research?  Which outputs do you see as providing benefits (now and in the future)?  Is the evidence sufficient to inform policy and practice? Opportunity to input into further enhancing the impacts of this research  What more needs to be done to enable action in your community? © UKCIP 2011

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