Navigating the science policy interface: a co-created mind-map to support early career research contributions to policy-relevant evidence

Abstract

The interface between science and policy is a complex space, in theory and practice, that sees the interaction of various actors and perspectives coming together to enable policy-relevant evidence to support decision-making. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are increasingly interested in working at the science-policy interface to support evidence-informed policy, with the number of opportunities to do so increasing at national and international levels. However, there are still many challenges limiting ECRs participation, not least how such a complex space can be accessed and navigated. While recommendations for engaging at the science-policy interface already exist, a practical ‘map’ of the science-policy interface landscape which would allow for ECR participation in evidence co-production and synthesis in science-policy is missing. With the purpose of facilitating the engagement of ECRs producing biodiversity and ecosystem services policy-relevant evidence at the interface between science and policy, the authors have co-created a ‘mind-map’—a tool to review the landscape of and leverage access to the science-policy interface. This tool was developed through reviewing published literature, collating personal experiences of the ECR authors, and validating against wider peer perspectives in an ECR workshop during the 7th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). This co-created tool sees ECR engagement in (co-)producing evidence at the science-policy interface as an interaction of three main factors: the environment of the ECR, which mediates their acts of engagement at the science-policy interface leading to outcomes that will ultimately have a reciprocal impact on the ECR’s environment.