Suchergebnisse

Due to the various stakes, values and views of social groups involved with climate change and adaptation, the process of developing the Dutch National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) needs to take a plurality of frames into account. The PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) aimed to inform this process using frame analysis. However, researchers at PBL did not succeed in applying the method as planned. Over the course of the production of the NAS, the hegemonic science-risk frame, which focuses on quantitative identification and subsequent prevention of risks, emerged as the dominant frame. Our case analysis based on participant observation and interviews shows that, even when frame-reflection was explicitly aimed for, this happened to be downscaled, unwittingly, under influence of tensions, challenges and paradoxes encountered during the essential balancing act that characterizes complex science-policy interfaces. Roles, interaction processes, client needs, internal processes are dynamically shaping and shaped by institutionalised expectations over objectivity, independence, inclusiveness and effectiveness. We argue that what makes frame analysis worthwhile is not so much its presupposed power to lead to the adoption of a multiplicity of frames, but rather its ability to lead to a form of institutionalized critique that refuses to take automatic recourse to a dominant frame (e.g. the science-risk frame). Thus, frame analysis is a crucial instrument in performing the aforementioned craft of science-policy interfacing, and needs to be more firmly integrated into science-policy interfacing for this very reason.

This article examines what the co-existence of different evaluation imaginaries – understandings of what environmental policy evaluation 'is' and 'should do' – means for everyday evaluation practice. We present a case study in which we show how these different understandings influence the evaluation process as they are mobilized interchangeably. Though co-existing evaluation imaginaries broaden the repertoire and potential for innovation, practitioners also experience tensions as innovative ambitions conflict with institutionalized practices. We hypothesize that practitioners deal with these inconsistencies by decoupling approaches, intentions and outcomes from each other. In this way, innovation occurs in parts of the evaluation process while other parts follow a more traditional approach. For evaluation theory we argue the need to further explore how decoupling enables practitioners to deal with co-existing imaginaries. For evaluation practice we stress that articulation of societal expectations is indispensable to ensure the legitimacy of policy evaluation.

AbstractDespite increased popularity of knowledge co-production as a research approach to address contemporary environmental issues, its implementation in science–policy contexts is not self-evident. In this paper, we illustrate how researchers at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (in Dutch: Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL)) ensured a fit between key features of knowledge co-production and conventional norms and customs for knowledge production processes at the science–policy interface while simultaneously challenging those norms to create space for knowledge co-production. Drawing on implementation science, we analyzed two types of alignment activities: negotiation of normative and relational norms and modification of co-production features. Based on three policy evaluation cases, we show that PBL researchers developed co-production capacity over time. They became more skilled at recognizing (un)conducive structures to knowledge co-production, negotiating such structures, and modifying co-production features without compromising co-production integrity. We argue that investment in these skills is required to negotiate space for knowledge co-production in science–policy settings.

About a decade ago, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) unwittingly embarked on a transition from a technocratic model of science advising to the paradigm of ''post-normal science'' (PNS). In response to a scandal around uncertainty management in 1999, a Guidance for ''Uncertainty Assessment and Communication'' was developed with advice from the initiators of the PNS concept and was introduced in 2003. This was followed in 2007 by a ''Stakeholder Participation'' Guidance. In this article, the authors provide a combined insider/outsider perspective on the transition process. The authors assess the extent to which the PNS paradigm has delivered new approaches in the agency's practice and analyze two projects—on long-term options for Dutch sustainable development policy and for urban development policy—the latter in somewhat more detail. The authors identify several paradoxes PBL encounters when putting the PNS concept into practice. It is concluded that an openness to other styles of work than the technocratic model has become visible, but that the introduction of the PNS paradigm is still in its early stage.