Deadline: 1 April 2012
Open to: Scholars of political science, law, administrative science, science and technology studies, modelling of ecosystems, economic modelling and modelling of social impacts
Venue: 5-6 October, 2012, in Berlin, Germany
Description
The “2012 Berlin Conference on Evidence for Sustainable Development” will be held on 5-6 October, 2012, in Berlin. It will be the 11th conference in the well-established series of Conferences on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change.
From climate change to stock market crashes, societies are increasingly confronted with complex, interconnected economic, social and environmental problems. Public and private decisions to meet these challenges affect future generations and – in a globalized world – oftentimes impact on societies abroad. Sustainable development has to take into account these complex, long term and side effects. This is why the evidence base of decision making is of growing importance. Many countries have established institutions such as advisory councils, assessment procedures, evaluation clauses etc., and initiated research programmes to collect evidence and to assess policies regarding their impacts on the various dimensions of sustainable development. This is meant to take possible side effects into account, thereby improving the quality of decision making and contributing to sustainable development.
While there has been a strengthening of political commitment to improve the evidence base of public policy, these expectations are often not met in practice. The provision of evidence and knowledge is obviously not a sufficient condition to change policies or behaviour. To be taken into consideration, scientific evidence has to be perceived as relevant and timely. However, there exists neither a single decision maker nor a uniform science: Policy making is a process with many actors and interests involved. Scientific evidence is constantly challenged by competing theories and methods. In such ambiguous situations, problems and policies to address these problems are constantly challenged, reframed and reconsidered. Scientific evidence is used to support political arguments and to legitimize a course of action, but it is also frequently disregarded, side-lined or even discredited if it challenges established practices and vested interests. A direct impact of scientific evidence on political decisions is apparently rare. In many cases, research has a much more indirect and unintended impact on policy through conceptual use, knowledge creep, and ideas that enable policy makers to gradually revise their framings of the policy problem. In such situations, many scientists experience their involvement in the support of decision making as frustrating. Policy makers and society in turn perceive science as a chorus of often contradicting voices, not useful to base decisions on.
Against this background, the conference will cover two issues:
- How can the research process be organised to develop evidence that is considered relevant and timely in the political process to meet the challenges of sustainable development?
- How can the policy-science interface be organised in a way that such scientific evidence is taken into consideration?
Eligibility
The conference aims at bringing together scientists from different disciplines and strands of research that produce evidence to support decision-making for sustainable development, and those that study the use of such evidence. Furthermore, we invite policy-makers and practitioners working at the science-policy interface or dealing with issues of evidence use in policy making to share their experiences. In particular, we call for contributions of:
- Scholars of political science, law, administrative science etc., studying the use of evidence in decision making;
- Scholars of science and technology studies, studying the construction of evidence and the interaction with decision-making;
- Scholars in the field of modelling of ecosystems, economic modelling and modelling of social impacts, working on the evidence itself to be used in decision-making.
Application
Paper proposals (max. 300 words) are invited for submission through the conference website by 1 April, 2012 (registration for paper submission will be open soon). Submissions will then be reviewed anonymously by an international reviewer panel. Acceptance will be decided on the basis of scientific quality (theoretical, methodological, new empirical evidence) and best fit with the conference topics. Notification of acceptance will be announced by 30 June, 2012. Full papers are expected by 15 September, 2012.
For more information please read the Official Call for Papers.
Global enviromental change are a very delicate issue nowdays because is linked closely with suistanable development.So it means a responsible use of our natural resources tu sustain our development but without the pollution of the enviroment and to give our descentants not a less richier world that we inhereted from our ancesters.Without any doubt we should not give them global warming as a gift of doom because our duty is to lead the young generations in this new millenium in the way how they must sustain suistanable development no matter what.