Decision Making for the Environment Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities (2005) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 11-22
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From page 11... ...
asked the National Academies to identify a few science priorities that could contribute to improved environmental decision making and also advance the social and behavioral sciences. The National Academies were given a broad purview for this study.
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From page 12... ...
We understood the relevant social and behavioral sciences to include the traditional disciplines of anthropology, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology as well as various associated interdisciplinary fields, such as decision science, communications research, policy sciences, human ecology, and science and technology studies. Thus, we did not consider recommending priority research areas that we judged to fall primarily in economics, regardless of how well those areas might score against the decision criteria we used.
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From page 13... ...
Applying the Decision Criteria The three decision criteria that the panel was given entailed making predictive judgments about the consequences for science and decision making of differential investments in research. Historical examples of important advances in the social and behavioral sciences suggest the difficulty of predicting the path, impacts, costs, and benefits from innovations in the social sciences.
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From page 14... ...
The panel sought nevertheless to discipline the study by repeated reference to the decision criteria, to develop collective judgments in relation to the criteria as conscientiously and consistently as possible, and to seek guidance from past experience and empirical research on the use of knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences in environmental and other practical decision making. We consulted panel members with expertise in decision processes for advice on what procedure to use to judge potential science priority areas against the criteria.
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From page 15... ...
Potential Value of the Expected Knowledge We rated potential science priorities highly on this criterion when we judged the following factors to be applicable: · The research findings are relevant for decisions with important environmental consequences and social or economic implications that are significant to affected parties or governments. · The research findings are relevant for a diverse range of environmental decisions.
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From page 16... ...
We rated potential science priorities highly on the criterion of likely use of research results if we judged the following factors to apply: · Decision makers, such as those in organizations that make environmentally important decisions or among groups affected by such decisions, would be likely to request the research or the information it can yield. · Decision makers, including parties affected by decisions, have incentives to seek and use the information, for example, to help them achieve personal, group, or organizational objectives.
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From page 17... ...
We recommend a program of research in the decision sciences addressed to improving the analytical tools and analytic-deliberative processes necessary for good environmental decision making. It would include three components: developing criteria of decision quality; developing and testing formal tools for structuring decision processes; and creating effective processes, often termed analyticdeliberative, in which a broad range of participants take important roles in environmental decisions, including framing and interpreting scientific analyses.
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From page 18... ...
We recommend that the federal government strengthen the scientific infrastructure for evidence-based environmental policy by pursuing a research strategy that emphasizes decision relevance. It should do this by developing decision-relevant indicators for environmental policy, including pressures on the environment, environmental states, and human responses and consequences; by making concerted efforts to evaluate environmental policies; by developing better methods for identifying the trends that will determine environmental quality in the future; and by improving methods for determining the distributional impacts of environmental policies and programs.
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From page 19... ...
Innovation is important for environmental policy both because of the role of technological innovation in creating and ameliorating environmental problems and because of the need for policy innovation at all levels and for its diffusion. Issues of innovation are particularly important to our science priorities in the areas of decision-making processes, environmental governance, green business decision making, and individual behavior.
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From page 20... ...
Thus, a complex systems perspective may be usefully applied in the recommended priority areas of improving decision processes, environmental governance, and business decision making. Combining Social and Natural Science Even though our task was to identify priorities that flowed out of the social and behavioral sciences, each of our recommended science priorities requires collaboration, and sometimes integration, across the social and natural sciences.
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From page 21... ...
NOTES 1. We sent this request to the following groups, associations, and networks that include social and behavioral scientists with environmental interests: the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the Division of Population and Environmental Psychology of the American Psychological Association; the technology and environment politics section of the American Political Science Association; the environment and technology section of the American Sociological Association, the Rural Sociology Society, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the environmental studies section of the International Studies Association, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management; the International Society for Ecological Economics; the social, economic, and political sciences and societal impacts of science and engineering sections of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the International Association for the Study of Common Property; the Society for Human Ecology; the International Association for Society & Natural Resources; the risk communication section of the Society for Risk Analysis; the International Society for Industrial Ecology, and the Organizations and the National Environment network.
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From page 22... ...
22 DECISION MAKING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT science that examines more broadly the role of science and scientists in a variety of decision and policy processes (e.g., Brunner and Ascher, 1992; Gunderson, Holling, and Light, 1995; Sarewitz, Pielke, and Byerly, 2000; van Asselt, 2000; Freudenburg and Gramling, 2002; Ascher, 2004)
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