COREvents #2: Using collaborative knowledge practices in environmental planning and decision-making

How is trust in expertise generated and lost in environmental policy? How to overcome challenges in democratising environmental expertise? Why is joint fact-finding useful in complex planning and decision-making processes and how to apply it in practice?

The second COREvent explores the potential of inclusive knowledge practices to bridge the gap between science and environmental policy making and create a shared knowledge base that different actors consider relevant and reliable.

Three leading scholars, Prof. Susan Owens (Cambridge University, UK), Prof. Esther Turnhout (Wageningen University, the Netherlands) and Prof. Masahiro Matsuura (Meiji University, Japan) will share their insights on the ways to improve science-policy interface and broaden knowledge communities in environmental planning and policy-making context. You are warmly welcome to join the event!

Date: 4 September, 2018, 15:00-18:00

Place: Auditorium Laulujoutsen, 1^st floor, The Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), Mechelininkatu 34a, Helsinki

Programme

Prof. Susan Owens: Trust in Expertise for Environmental Policy

Prof. Esther Turnhout: Democratising environmental expertise: challenges and opportunities at the science-policy-society interface

Prof Masahiro Matsuura: Linking contested expert knowledge to collaborative governance: joint fact-finding

Discussion

Susan Owens is Emeritus Professor of Environment and Policy and Fellow Emerita of Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She has researched and published widely in the field of environmental governance. Her current projects are concerned with relations between science and politics, and with the role of argument, evidence, ideas and advice in policy formation and change. She has also worked extensively on interpretations of sustainable development in theory and practice, and has theorised connections between environmental planning conflicts (especially those concerned with contentious technologies and infrastructures) and developments in wider domains of public policy.

Esther Turnhout is Full Professor at the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group of Wageningen University, the Netherlands. Her research program The Politics of Environmental Knowledge includes research into the different roles experts play at the science policy interface, the political implications of policy relevant knowledge, and the participation of citizens in environmental knowledge making, also known as citizen science. Current research focuses on the UN Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), wildlife management and invasive species, auditing practices in forest management and the production of transparency and traceability in global value chains.

Masahiro Matsuura is Professor at the Graduate School of Governance Studies, Meiji University, Japan. He is also the head of Democracy Design Lab, a non-profit organization for promoting democratic engagements in Japan, and one of the co-founders of Consensus Building in Asia, a network of practitioners and scholars interested in collaborative processes in Asia. His research interests include the theory and practice of consensus building, negotiation and deliberative democracy in the urban and environmental planning sectors.

No registration is needed. If you are on Facebook, you can pick the event to your Facebook calendar.

You can see the video of the event online here.

During the event you can post comments and questions for the lecturers in Twitter with hashtag #corestn. 

COREvents is a series of open discussions, lectures and workshops organised by CORE project, funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland. CORE explores the potential of collaborative approaches to environmental planning and decision-making, with the mission to facilitate a collaborative turn in Finland. Welcome to discuss with us in Twitter with hashtags #corestn, #yhteishallinta and #strateginentutkimus!

COREvents #1 provided international insights in why collaboration and conflict resolution is needed and what makes it work. See the video here!