IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enscpo/v77y2017icp9-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mini-me: Why do climate scientists’ misunderstand users and their needs?

Author

Listed:
  • Porter, James J.
  • Dessai, Suraje

Abstract

Increasingly climate scientists and the users of climate information are being asked to deliberately co-produce knowledge to improve decision-making about adaptation to climate change. To do this, scientists not only need to be committed and willing to interact with users but also have the capacity to listen, understand, and respond to their needs. Yet little is known about how climate scientists perceive users and respond to their needs when deliberately co-producing knowledge. Using the case study of the UK Climate Projections 2009 (UKCP09) we seek to address this gap. Drawing on interviews with climate scientists, boundary workers, and government officials involved in UKCP09, we investigate how perceptions of users and their needs are constructed as well as the difficulties in responding to them. Our research shows that climate scientists struggle to respond to users other than a small cadre of actors like themselves – highly technical and highly numerate – mini-mes; as what constitutes ‘credible, usable, and relevant’ science is different for users and scientists. Others involved in UKCP09 considered a broader set of users, with more heterogeneous capacities, as the target audience. We find that the climate scientists’ narrow perceptions of users were strongly influenced by (i) their past experiences; (ii) the level and type of scientist-user interactions; and (iii) the institutional setting in which the science took place. This research suggests that climate scientists need broader social support from other experts as well as institutional goals geared towards a broader set of users if they are to successfully co-produce climate knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Porter, James J. & Dessai, Suraje, 2017. "Mini-me: Why do climate scientists’ misunderstand users and their needs?," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 9-14.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:9-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2017.07.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901116308875
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.07.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Britta Restemeyer & Floris C. Boogaard, 2020. "Potentials and Pitfalls of Mapping Nature-Based Solutions with the Online Citizen Science Platform ClimateScan," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Edward R. Carr, 2022. "Climate Services and Transformational Adaptation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Robert Wilby & Xianfu Lu, 2022. "Tailoring climate information and services for adaptation actors with diverse capabilities," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 1-13, October.
    4. Jean P. Palutikof & Roger B. Street & Edward P. Gardiner, 2019. "Decision support platforms for climate change adaptation: an overview and introduction," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 459-476, April.
    5. Adam H. Sobel, 2021. "Usable climate science is adaptation science," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 1-11, May.
    6. Berill Blair & Olivia A. Lee & Machiel Lamers, 2020. "Four Paradoxes of the User–Provider Interface: A Responsible Innovation Framework for Sea Ice Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-19, January.
    7. Dolinska, Aleksandra & Hassenforder, Emeline & Loboguerrero, Ana Maria & Sultan, Benjamin & Bossuet, Jérôme & Cottenceau, Jeanne & Bonatti, Michelle & Hellin, Jon & Mekki, Insaf & Drogoul, Alexis & Va, 2023. "Co-production opportunities seized and missed in decision-support frameworks for climate-change adaptation in agriculture – How do we practice the “best practice”?," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    8. Noam Obermeister, 2020. "Tapping into science advisers’ learning," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Scott E. Kalafatis & Kyle Powys Whyte & Julie C. Libarkin & Chris Caldwell, 2019. "Ensuring climate services serve society: examining tribes’ collaborations with climate scientists using a capability approach," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 115-131, November.
    10. Marina Baldissera Pacchetti & Suraje Dessai & David A. Stainforth & Seamus Bradley, 2021. "Assessing the quality of state-of-the-art regional climate information: the case of the UK Climate Projections 2018," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 1-25, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:77:y:2017:i:c:p:9-14. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-science-and-policy/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.