Abstract
The boundary between science and policy is only one of several boundaries that hinder the linking of scientific and technical information to decision making. Managing boundaries between disciplines, across scales of geography and jurisdiction, and between different forms of knowledge is also often critical to transferring information. The research presented in this paper finds that information requires three (not mutually exclusive) attributes - salience, credibility, and legitimacy - and that what makes boundary crossing difficult is that actors on different sides of a boundary perceive and value salience, credibility, and legitimacy differently. Presenting research on water management regimes in the United States, international agricultural research systems, El Nino forecasting systems in the Pacific and southern Africa, and fisheries in the North Atlantic, this paper explores: 1) how effective boundary work involves creating salient, credible, and legitimate information simultaneously for multiple audiences; 2) the thresholds, complementarities and tradeoffs between salience, credibility, and legitimacy when crossing boundaries; and 3) propositions for institutional mechanisms in boundary organizations which effectively balance tradeoffs, take advantage on complementarities, and reach thresholds of salience, credibility, and legitimacy.
Highlights
Linking knowledge and action to meet the needs of human development while protecting fundamental biophysical systems has proven to be a chronically difficult task
Synthesizing the findings from these cases, other examples from our consultative process, and the literature, we suggest several hypothesized organizational structures and strategies that effectively help manage boundaries in linking salient, credible and legitimate science and technology to decision making for sustainable development: 1. Accountability: A critical institutional mechanism which helps assure legitimacy across boundaries is accountability to both sides of the boundary (Guston 1999)
While more research needs to be completed on the role of individuals, preliminary findings suggest that is often individuals who have legitimacy or credibility on both sides of a boundary that are especially useful in making this bridge
Summary
Linking knowledge and action to meet the needs of human development while protecting fundamental biophysical systems has proven to be a chronically difficult task. Point to the danger of overestimating the importance of credibility alone, while undervaluing two other attributes of science and technology systems: salience (how relevant information is to decision making bodies or publics) and legitimacy (how “fair” an information producing process is and whether it considers appropriate values, concerns, and perspectives of different actors.) Paying too little attention to salience is exemplified in the case of the Global Biodiversity Assessment, in which the primary intended audience (parties to the Convention on Biological diversity) had little interest in the kinds of questions that were being asked by the assessors.
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