Lessons from bright-spots for advancing knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy.

Evidence-informed decision-making is in increasing demand given growing pressures on marine environments. A way to facilitate this is by knowledge exchange among marine scientists and decision-makers. While many barriers are reported in the literature, there are also examples whereby research has successfully informed marine decision-making (i.e., 'bright-spots'). Here, we identify and analyze 25 bright-spots from a wide range of marine fields, contexts, and locations to provide insights into how to improve knowledge exchange at the interface of marine science and policy. Through qualitative surveys we investigate what initiated the bright-spots, their goals, and approaches to knowledge exchange. We also seek to identify what outcomes/impacts have been achieved, the enablers of success, and what lessons can be learnt to guide future knowledge exchange efforts. Results show that a diversity of approaches were used for knowledge exchange, from consultative engagement to genuine knowledge co-production. We show that diverse successes at the interface of marine science and policy are achievable and include impacts on policy, people, and governance. Such successes were enabled by factors related to the actors, processes, support, context, and timing. For example, the importance of involving diverse actors and managing positive relationships is a key lesson for success. However, enabling routine success will require: 1) transforming the ways in which we train scientists to include a greater focus on interpersonal skills, 2) institutionalizing and supporting knowledge exchange activities in organizational agendas, 3) conceptualizing and implementing broader research impact metrics, and 4) transforming funding mechanisms to focus on need-based interventions, impact planning, and an acknowledgement of the required time and effort that underpin knowledge exchange activities.

A procedural evaluation of an analytic-deliberative process: the Columbia River Comprehensive Impact Assessment.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Columbia River Comprehensive Impact Assessment (CRCIA) was an ambitious attempt to direct its cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation toward the most significant risks to the Columbia River resulting from past plutonium production. DOE's approach was uncommonly open, including tribal, regulatory agency, and other Hanford interest group representatives on the board that was to develop the assessment approach. The CRCIA process had attributes of the "analytic-deliberative" process for risk assessment recommended by the National Research Council. Nevertheless, differences between the DOE and other participants over what was meant by the term "comprehensive" in the group's charge, coupled with differing perceptions of the likely effectiveness of remediation efforts in reducing risks, were never resolved. The CRCIA effort became increasingly fragmented and the role its products were to play in influencing future clean-up decisions increasingly ambiguous. A procedural evaluation of the CRCIA process, based on Thomas Webler's procedural normative model of public participation, reveals numerous instances in which theoretical-normative discourse disconnects occurred. These had negative implications for both the basic procedural dimensions of Webler's model-fairness and competence. Tribal and other interest group representatives lacked the technical resources necessary to make or challenge what philosopher Jurgens Habermas terms cognitive validity claims, while DOE and its contractors did not challenge normative claims made by tribal representatives. The results are cautionary for implementation of the analytic-deliberative process. They highlight the importance of bringing rigor to the evaluation of the quality of the deliberation component of risk characterization via the analytic-deliberative process, as well as to the analytic component.