Science of Knowledge Use

For the past few decades, research on global environmental change has brought to light the severity and interconnectedness of social and ecological problems. Yet, there is not enough scientific knowledge produced to meet the needs and/or to inform concrete problem solving on the ground. To this end, a growing number of scientists, science policy-makers, decision-makers and other practitioners have sought to understand how to produce and disseminate more actionable, practice-relevant, transformational, and/or usable science. While this effort has led to progress in understanding the drivers of knowledge use and the deployment of innovative strategies at the interface of science and policy, a more fundamental understanding of how knowledge can support and inform decision-making, synthesized across multiple disciplinary and practical perspectives, is critical. To help bridge science-policy divides, this SESYNC workshop series will bring together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners to systematically explore what we do and do not know about the drivers of knowledge use in decision-making. This effort seeks to promote learning across existing domains of research and practice that have already uncovered important insights on this topic and to chart the future for a more integrative research enterprise that supports the aspirations of both scientists and decision-makers.