CASC Project Evaluation Survey Template

The design of this survey protocol is based on the indicator framework presented in Wall et. al (2017 https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-16-0008.1) and is intended to evaluate projects funded by Climate Adaptation Science Centers. The intended respondents are stakeholders who were engaged in the creation of scientific knowledge and tools during these projects. The questions cover three topical areas: process (engagement in the process of knowledge production), outputs/outcomes (use of information), and impacts (building of relationships and trust).

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When Do Climate Services Achieve Societal Impact? Evaluations of Actionable Climate Adaptation Science

To cope with complex environmental impacts in a changing climate, researchers are increasingly being asked to produce science that can directly support policy and decision making. To achieve such societal impact, scientists are using climate services to engage directly with stakeholders to better understand their needs and inform knowledge production. However, the wide variety of climate-services outcomes—ranging from establishing collegial relationships with stakeholders to obtaining specific information for inclusion into a pre-existing decision process—do not directly connect to traditional methods of measuring scientific impact (e.g., publication citations, journal impact factor). In this paper, we describe...

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Final Report: Engaging with Stakeholders to Produce Actionable Science: Moving from Theory to Practice

Over time, the idea of the public value of federally funded science has slowly transitioned from basic science that helps fight disease and maintain national security (Bush 1945) to use-inspired science that directly informs decisions about the most urgent issues facing society, such as climate change (Lubchenco 1998, 2017). Natural and cultural resources across the world are already experiencing demonstrable impacts due to changes in our climate system, and stewards of these resources are turning to the scientific community for actionable science – information and tools that can be directly applied to decisions about how best to adapt to these future conditions (IPCC 2022). Such societal impact is more likely to...

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Engaging with stakeholders to produce actionable science: a framework and guidance

Natural and cultural resource managers are increasingly working with the scientific community to create information on how best to adapt to the current and projected impacts of climate change. Engaging with these managers is a strategy that researchers can use to ensure that scientific outputs and findings are actionable (or useful and usable). In this article, the authors adapt Davidson’s wheel of participation to characterize and describe common stakeholder engagement strategies across the spectrum of Inform, Consult, Participate, and Empower. This adapted framework provides researchers with a standardized vocabulary for describing their engagement approach, guidance on how to select an approach, methods for implementing...

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