Over the past decades the international community has engaged in considerable efforts in science and politics to encounter the degradation and loss of biological diversity and ecosystem services. Yet, despite these efforts, biological diversity and ecosystem services continue to be degraded and lost at alarming rates. This thesis focuses on the need for improved interrelations between science and policy as a crucial element of institutional reform necessary to address the current impasse of biodiversity and ecosystem services governance. Science-‐policy interfaces are critical forces in shaping the development of environmental governance. But their interactions are increasingly challenged by the complexity of today’s problems in unprecedented ways. Growing awareness of the importance of science-‐policy interfaces as key elements of environmental governance has triggered a range of reflections and debate regarding the design of more effective science-‐policy interfaces also in biodiversity and ecosystem services governance. However, significant differences prevail in understanding what science-‐policy interfaces are and how they work, where and why they currently fail, and what would be needed to improve them. This divergence is impeding the opportunities to substantively engage with the necessary institutional reforms. In this context, the objectives of this thesis have been (i) to further develop a coherent theoretical framework of science-‐policy interfaces that is useful for the design and management of science-‐policy interfaces; (ii) to analyse shortcomings of a range of existing science-‐policy interfaces in biodiversity and ecosystem services governance; and (iii) to explore needs and options that would be suitable to improve them allowing for a more effective governance of biodiversity and ecosystem services. To reach these objectives, the thesis builds on the intensive examination of three case studies that cover critical assessment of (i) the use of participation as an important concept in science-‐policy interfaces in European biodiversity governance, in particular as regards the Birds and Habitats Directive; (ii) the role the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) as science-‐policy interface to the Convention on Biological Diversity; and (iii) the debate related to the now-‐to-‐be established Intergovernmental science-‐policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The principle research methods applied are participant observation at a broad range of relevant events and activities, and critical discourse analysis of a wealth of related texts, discussions and interviews. The thesis describes science-‐policy interfaces in institutional terms, as a combination of cognitive models, normative structures and rights, rules and procedures that define and enable social practices interrelating science and policy, assign roles to scientists, policy-‐makers and other relevant stake-‐ and knowledge-‐ holders, and guide their interactions according to given principles and purposes. A set of critical mismatches, gaps and other shortcomings has been identified together with three major rhetorical shifts that have emerged in response. What is called for is the need to (i) a shift from universal globalocentric towards a more flexible polycentric understanding of policy making; (ii) a shift from a puzzle-‐solving linear model towards a more integrated non-‐linear approach of science for policy; and (iii) a shift from a conservationist and outcome-‐oriented towards a more anthropocentric and driver/pressure-‐oriented approach to biodiversity governance. Based on these needs, what is suggested here is a discursive, dynamic and polycentric network of science-‐policy interfaces reaching across regions, sectors and scales – an option of which most elements are either currently being discussed, are firmly rooted in decisions taken by the international community or could build on processes and programmes that are already in place.
| Date of Award | 1 Jul 2011 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Sybille van den Hove (Director) & Joan Martinez Alier (Director) |
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- Science-policy interfaces
- Biodiversity governance
Institutional dynamics of science-policy interfaces in international biodiversity governance
Koetz, T. (Author). 1 Jul 2011
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Koetz, T. (Author), Sybille Van Den Hove (Director) &
Martinez Alier, J. (Director),
1 Jul 2011Student thesis: Doctoral thesis
Student thesis: Doctoral thesis