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The IPCC has been successful at building its scientific authority, but it will require institutional reform for staying relevant to new and changing political contexts. Exploring a range of alternative future pathways for the IPCC can help guide crucial decisions about redefining its purpose.

Almost three decades have passed since the publishing of the last, and only, special issue on the sociology-environmental nexus in this journal. Since then, few of the articles published in Sociologisk Forskning have addressed climate change at all or in any substantial way. This silence could be interpreted as a quiet statement that sociology does not need to concern itself with climate change. However, no such line of argument is suggested in this special issue “Climate crisis”, which (re)presents current Swedish sociological research on climate change. Many of the authors take a similar stance that (environmental) sociology should not shy away from the climate crisis and the societal project of transformative change. Rather, sociologic research should study empirical cases of climate transitions or transformations, and contribute suggestions, as well as explanations, to how such changes can be accelerated.

In the wake of controversies surrounding both the legitimacy and effectiveness of intergovernmental expert organisations, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was established in 2012 as a new intergovernmental expert organisation with the explicit mandate to move beyond ‘one-size-fits-it-all’ approaches. During its first eight years of operating, this attempt to ‘do different’ has made IPBES develop into a space for individual, experiential, and organisational learning and has made significant progress towards becoming a ‘learning organisation’. However, learning can take different forms. Looking towards the future development of IPBES, the importance of transformative learning and the need to establish institutional reflexive processes in which this transformative learning can take place will be critical. IPBES has a number of novel features, three key features facilitating transformative learning are its ambitious principles and inclusive approach to a wide range expertise and knowledges, its fellowship programme, and commitment to a transparent and on-going review process. While IPBES’ social organisation is significantly different from previous initiatives and has created opportunities for transformative learning, not all learning and all changes that have taken place have been reflexive and some innovative features also have had unintended consequences for the results of the learning activities. As a result, to live up to its ambitions of contributing to positive and transformative societal and environmental change, IPBES must strengthen its capacity for transformative learning. Some proposals on how to systemise it further are outlined.

Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break with unsustainable norms, habits, practices, and structures, there is a need for learning for transformation, not only adaption. Based on a critical literature review within the field of learning for sustainable development, our approach is a development of the concept of transformative learning, by integrating three additional dimensions—Institutional Structures, Social Practices, and Conflict Perspectives. This approach acknowledges conflicts on macro, meso, and micro levels, as well as structural and cultural constraints. It contends that transformative learning is processual, interactional, long-term, and cumbersome. It takes place within existing institutions and social practices, while also transcending them. The article adopts an interdisciplinary social science perspective that acknowledges the importance of transformative learning in order for communities, organizations, and individuals to be able to deal with global sustainability problems, acknowledging the societal and personal conflicts involved in such transformation.

This paper takes its point of departure from current social constructionist theories on environmental risks and local-expert relations. Focusing on local residents’ knowledge production, it questions the one-sidedness that has dominated the research in favour of an expertise perspective, and points at the importance to involve knowledge of the local residents to understand the construction of environmental risks.

By reviewing recent theoretical contributions who try to balance this lack of research, such as Gross (2010), Irwin and Michel (2003) and Wynne (1986, 1996), this paper accentuates the scientific importance of more empirical as well as theoretical work on the local residents’ knowledge production. The review also shows how the relation between local residents and experts could be described in terms of trust and distrust.

The paper emphasises the importance of studying local residents’ knowledge production. The paper’s main conclusions are (I) that it is through the study of how local residents’ make use of scientific knowledge that their relation to expertise in terms of trust or distrust becomes visible and (II) that it is first with the identification of how local residents’ produce their knowledge that it becomes possible to understand the constructions of environmental risks.

The aim of this paper is to understand how local residents participate in the construction of local environmental problems and to evaluate a particular analytical approach in environmental sociology to study this phenomenon. The paper is based on an interview study with a sample of local residents. The analysis demonstrates how the local residents attempt to construct a local environmental problem. In particular, the study focuses on how involved actors are positioned, how different sorts of knowledge claims are used, and how the neglect the residents perceive from the authorities affects the attempt to construct a local environmental problem. The study shows that the local residents play a central role in the construction of the situation and that the evaluated model could be very helpful as an analytical tool in the investigation of local residents' participation in the construction of environmental problems.

In southern Gotland in the Baltic Sea, a moth outbreak has caused human nuisance & possible long-term effects on the tourist industry, prompting demands for intervention to reduce the insect population. At the same time, there have been warnings concerning the broader ecological consequences of spraying, not least for biodiversity. Through an interview study using a sample of local residents, their deliberations on the spraying are analyzed. In particular, the analysis focuses on the lay understanding of the situation & how this relates to a scientific understanding of it, its causes, & possible remedies. The study focuses on the narratives residents created to make sense of the situation and guide action, on the risks they associated with different action options, & on how these narratives relate to the expert view of the problem. The analysis shows that trust & distrust should not be seen as dichotomous, but must be more differentiated. Simultaneously, as the residents criticize specific knowledge claims & specific experts, their trust in science can strengthen. Furthermore, the analysis shows that citizen knowledge does not merely passively reflect science. Instead, citizens create meaning and construct knowledge by organizing personal experience and articulated knowledge claims into coherent narratives.

The basis for this article is the growing interest in understanding how the public evaluates risk issues. The empirical case consists of an interview study of residents in an area that has experienced an outbreak of moths that has become a nuisance to humans. The study focuses on the narratives created by the residents to make sense of the situation, the risks they associated with regulatory options, and how these narratives relate to expert opinions of the problem. The analysis shows that the residents criticize specific experts and knowledge claims. This is done, however, without questioning science as such; there is still a belief among the residents that science is an institution that generally produces valid knowledge. The analysis also shows that citizen knowledge does not merely passively reflect science. Instead, citizens create meaning and construct knowledge by organizing personal experiences and knowledge claims into coherent narratives.

For many countries, the IUCN Red List of threatened species is a central instrument in their work to counteract loss of biodiversity. This article analyzes the development of the Red List categories and criteria, how these categories and criteria are used in the construction of global, national, and regional red lists, and how the red lists are employed in policy work. A central finding of the article is that this mix of actors implies many different forms of boundary work. This article also finds that the Red List functions as a portable representation, that is, a context-independent instrument to represent nature. A third finding is that the Red List functions as a link between experts and policy makers. Thus, the Red List is best understood as a boundary object and hybrid practice where the credibility of scientific assessment and a specific policy is mutually strengthened

The concept and phenomena of biodiversity point at and argue for the interrelatedness of nature and society. That humans and society are a part of nature, and that nature is altered and threatened by the organization of modern society. When the concept of biodiversity was introduced within biology, it was argued that conservation biologists had the knowledge needed to conserve nature and reverse the destruction of biodiversity, thus they were described to hold the key to the future through the power of scientific knowledge. However, this argument forgets the social dimension of biodiversity. To conserve nature and reverse the destruction of biodiversity we also need knowledge of the social dimensions of biodiversity. Thus, environmental sociologists hold a complementary key to the future through the power of social scientific knowledge.

The problem of biodiversity loss is a complex issue involving multiple actors and knowledge forms. This article examines how this complexity is possible without fragmenting the issue and causing it to lose its meaning and legitimacy. Inspired by Jasanoff, the study aims to analyse the construction of biological diversity through a co-production perspective. This aim is achieved by focusing on three milestones in the history of the problem of biodiversity loss: launching the concept of biodiversity, establishing the Convention on Biological Diversity and founding the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The study shows how biological diversity consists of a co-production of facts and values and how its differences make it a stable rather than unstable phenomenon. The study offers knowledge of the hybrid character of biodiversity and discusses the importance of trying to manage the complexity of biological diversity rather than reducing it through boundary work.

This chapter argues that Early Career Researchers (ECRs) can contribute to the IPCC in two major ways. First, ECRs can contribute unique skills and competences to the assessment process. Second, ECRs can share the workload with senior researchers and thus enhance the quality of the assessment. By reviewing the IPCC’s Scholarship Programme and the role of Chapter Scientists, this chapter explores the potentials and challenges of introducing ECRs into the IPCC, and for the Panel to engage in capacity building to enhance the quality of the assessment. The review shows how the organisational setup of the Scholarship Programme and the Chapter Scientist role allows the IPCC to informally engage in capacity building without diverting from its mandate that does not include capacity building. Even so, ECRs remains an untapped source of expertise that, through active and strategic work, can contribute to the future development of the IPCC.

Although biodiversity is considered to be one of today’s greatest environmental challenges, its definition remains open to interpretation. How biodiversity is understood and managed depends on the environmental discourses within which it is articulated. This paper examines how the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC), one of the largest environmental NGOs in Sweden, describes biodiversity in its 2011 yearbook. The yearbook is aimed at a wide audience and is intended to improve the general public’s understanding of biodiversity. Using discourse analysis, this study shows how the SSNC defines biodiversity by re-articulating three environmental discourses and integrating them into a single storyline. The analysis shows how these discourses offer different possibilities for different subject positions to speak about and act in relation to biodiversity. Finally, the study shows how normative implications for action are articulated as consequences of these definitions and who is responsible for performing these actions.

By studying the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a community of practice and learning space for academic identity development, this paper studies the creation of environmental expertise within expert organizations. The study focuses its analysis on how IPBES through its fellowship programme contributes to academic identity development among early-career researchers, including providing new contextual references to understand what it means to engage in and balance biodiversity research, teaching, and service. The study is based on interviews with early-career researchers who participated in the production of the IPBES’s Global Assessment Report. The study shows how the IPBES fellowship programme, by introducing its fellows into the organization’s community of practice simultaneously, contributes to their academic identity development and the creation and maintenance of the boundaries of environmental expertise. The analysis further shows how the fellows develop an academic identity that unites two different communities of practice of equal importance for their understanding of what they are supposed to do as academics and widens their understanding of what it means to be a successful academic.

This perspective paper argues for the importance of a better understanding of expert organizations' roles in creating expert knowledge and these organizations’ responsibilities in building the next generation of experts. To what extent is this responsibility theirs, do they take it on, and what are the consequences if they do or do not? The argument is based on a comparison of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES). Using a theoretical framework that defines expertise, expert communities, and expertise in organizations, the analysis explores and explains the structural preconditions that guide these organizations in their work. The paper shows how the IPCC and the IPBES play similar but different roles in developing expertise and creating the next generation of experts due to differences in their current organizational structures. The paper also shows how the IPCC and the IPBES are not mere facilitators or coordinators of existing expert knowledge. Instead, the IPCC and the IPBES also create experience-based situated expert knowledge that influences the epistemic communities that inform environmental governance on climate change and biodiversity loss and enable transformative change for a sustainable future.

Research has shown a great distrust among youths toward political representatives, who they demand should “listen to the science.” However, less research has been done on youths’ own trust in science. This study explores and explains how youths who are environmentally active in two different environmental youth organizations relate to science in social media, whether they trust science, and how youths’ relation to science creates a discursive context in which they may develop their identity. The study uses the approach of discourse analysis to examine social media content published on Facebook by Fridays for Future Sweden and Fältbiologerna (the Swedish Field Biologists). The study shows (i) how subject positions for scientists and youth are created in relation to one another based on different expressions of youths’ trust in science and(ii) how environmental youth organizations, by identifying with science, make youths important actors in the discourse on climate change.

To create a societal change towards a sustainable future, constructive relations between science and policy are of major importance. Boundary organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have come to play an important role in establishing such constructive relations. This study contributes to the development of empirically informed knowledge on the challenge of balancing different expectations for how the science–policy relation is to be constructed to create trustworthy knowledge and policy decisions, i.e., when to be what and to whom. This study revisits Climategate and uses the public debate on the IPCC’s credibility, legitimacy, and policy relevance that followed Climategate as an analytical window to explore how the IPCC balanced the science–policy relation in a trustworthy manner. The analysis is based on a document study. The study shows how different expectations on the science–policy relation coexist, and how these risks create a loss of trust, credibility, legitimacy, and policy relevance. Thus, for boundary organizations to have a chance to impact policy discussions, reflexivity about the present epistemic ideals and expectations on knowledge production is of major importance, and must be reflected in an organizational flexibility that is open to different strategies on how to connect science and policy in relation to different actors and phases of the knowledge production process.

Med utgångspunkt i Ylva Ugglas arbeten om miljörepresentanten kommer denna text att vända den analytiska blicken mot miljösociologin, dvs. det fält inom vilket Ugglas studier har genomförts och som även är det fällt inom vilket författaren till denna text är verksam. Det analytiska fokuset förflyttas samtidigt från de enskilda aktörer som agerar som miljörepresentanter till miljösociologin som fält och till det eventuella ansvar och de möjligheter som detta fällt skapar i termer av miljörepresentation. Genom att låta analysen utvecklas till en form av disciplinär självreflektion ämnar texten bidra till att problematisera miljösociologins egen roll som representant för naturen samt diskutera vikten av mångfald inom denna representation, både för naturens och disciplinens framtids skull.

To translate scientific knowledge into actions in social practices outside of science has been highlighted as one of the biggest challenges in environmental conservation. What has been presented as a key in this process is to balance between the need of new knowledge to explain details of nature’s complexity and the need to simplify the complexity to make it manageable, a balance that is supposed to contribute to transform knowing into doing. As this challenge is faced to meet the need of science based environmental decisions, it becomes more and more important to also ask the question of how this translation is done, this to understand what consequences it brings to what is, and could be, known and done.

By using the case of themonarch butterfly, this study provides knowledge of how the translation of knowledge between different social settings, such as science, citizen science, and policy, are being executed in an ongoing scientific and policy discussion. The study combines document studies with an interview study including scientists, citizen scientists, and ENGO representatives, all positioned in the center(s) of the monarch community. The analysis shows how a strong and engaging narrative are being constructed of the monarch butterfly by balancing detailed knowledge with general descriptions, inclusion and common knowledge with particularities and expertise, and consensus with conflicts.

The study shows how scientific ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty are managed throughout the process of trying to translate knowing into doing, findings of importance to environmental conservation as well as to scientific communication more generally

In January 2014, the monarch butterfly reached North American political agendas due to reports of a long-term population decline. Requests were made for reliable descriptions of what was known about the butterfly, its population and migration, and the actions needed to protect it. This article studies the construction of the collective narrative that has come to dominate the public discourse on the butterfly. The analysis demonstrates how complexity and uncertainty in monarch knowledge have been managed through a process of coproduction, where focus has been on emphasizing knowledge certainty by portraying science and conservation as two separate but dependent social spheres.

What role organizational preconditions play for the constitution of expertise and the construction of epistemic authority? This is the guiding question for this paper, which studies how expertise is shaped in the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The IPBES has been described as an organizational blue print of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By organizing the world’s experts on biodiversity, IPBES set out to produce policy-relevant knowledge. However, while IPCC is delimited to organize scientific knowledge, IPBES also acknowledges the importance to find ways to synthetize different knowledge forms, including indigenous and local knowledges. Thus, for IPBES, policy-relevant knowledge is created through the enrolment of fundamentally different knowledge practices and multiple forms of experts.

In the light of IPBES’s ambitions to become an epistemic authority through synthetization of heterogeneous knowledge forms, we need to revisit the classic questions of who is an expert and its relation to epistemic authority. What does expert mean for IPBES and how does the expert contribute shape the epistemic authority of the IPBES?

Based on a combination of documents and interviews, this study explores the organizational structure of IPBES through which expertise are determined and experts enrolled. Experts and expertise has previously been understood as either created relationally, or as being qualities possible to acquire. However, the result of this study shows how expertise and epistemological authority also have important organizational preconditions. IPBES’s institutional design is pivotal in the making of expertise and the shaping of the epistemic authority of IPBES.

Expert organisations, such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES), have become increasingly important in global, regional, and local efforts to manage current environmental challenges. As producers of environmental knowledge assessments, these expert organisations are epistemic authorities in their field of expertise. To achieve and maintain epistemic authority, expert organisations constantly need to reproduce and develop their expertise. By using the first cohort of IPBES’s fellowship program as a case study, the current paper examines the production of expertise and the socialisation of new experts into expert organisations. The paper also examines the importance of these socialisation processes in the institutionalisation of expert organisations. By analyzing interviews, observations, and documents, the current study explores the expected goals, the performance, and the results of the socialisation. The study shows how the fellows learned and acquired new roles and norms. The study also shows that whoever controls the socialisation process also control the production of expertise and the institutionalisation of the expert organisation.

Being an expert organization in the making, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) faces the challenge to create an organisation which is able to facilitate a dialogue between science and policy today, and to remain credible, relevant, and legitimate tomorrow. In this, how do IPBES work to recruit and reproduce expertise needed for delivering assessments? How is new researchers socialized and integrated into the expert organizations’ epistemic perspective and social practices? What function does reproducing expertise have in the institutionalization of expert organizations? These questions are central for this paper, which analyze IPBES’s pilot fellowship program for young scholars.

The fellowship program was launched early 2015 with the explicit aim to integrate young scholars in the Platform’s regional and sub-regional assessment processes, thereby strengthening its capacity and knowledge foundations. The ambition is that the program will be expanded to eventually “create a pool of competent professionals able to carry forward the Platform agenda”. The participating young scholars will have a unique position and role in the making of IPBES. Participating in the program implies that they will have to balance (i) the expectations of having both a contributory and a learning position; and (ii) the commitment to work pro bono (without any economic compensation) in an assessment processes with keeping engagement with home institutions.

Through a combined analysis of documents and interviews with IPBES representatives involved in the fellowship program, this study explores this program, in particular what capacities IPBES are looking for and what role the young scholars play in the assessment process as well as for IPBES general development. The analysis finds that there are both benefits and risks attached to the involvement of young scholars in the assessment process. By way of conclusion, some general remarks on the conditions of recruiting and socializing new expertise is raised.

Expert organizations in nature conservation are often described as boundary organizations that facilitate science-policy interfaces. Besides the boundary between science and policy, boundary organizations need to manage other social boundaries, such as between different knowledge forms and between different categories of actors. In order to shape credible, legitimate, and policy relevant knowledge a boundary organization has to make use of competences from both sides of these boundaries. However, this boundary management is to a large extent concealed for those external to it. Focusing the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), this study explores how boundaries are created and managed, as well as how they become important in order to shape credible, legitimate, and policy relevant knowledge. In particular, three boundaries are analyzed: between science and policy, between scientific knowledge and indigenous and local knowledge, and between senior and young experts. Three questions are central; how are boundaries created and managed in the process of knowledge production?; how does boundary work on different boundaries in the same organization intersect and influence one another?;  how is boundary work important, and what role does it play for the production of policy relevant knowledge? The empirical material consists of official documents from IPBES and interviews with IPBES fellows. By showing how different boundaries intersect in the construction of expert knowledge, this study deepens the understanding of the preconditions for expert-based policy recommendations in nature conservation.

The loss of biological diversity is one of today’s greatest environmental problems. Scientific knowledge is typically presented as the premise to solve this problem. However, science alone is not sufficient to produce knowledge of biodiversity. Other actors are also involved in knowledge production. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how different actors create knowledge of the environmental problem of biodiversity loss and to further investigate the importance of trust in the relationships between these knowledge producers.

This thesis uses a discourse analytical perspective and conducts interviews and document studies to explore how actors use different narratives to legitimate their knowledge production. Through four papers addressing different aspects of knowledge production, this thesis discusses conditions for knowledge production, particularly the importance of trust.

The results show that actors other than scientific experts also have the ability to act in knowledgeable ways and to be involved in knowledge production of biodiversity. Knowledge is produced by making use of many different dimensions and aspects, such as global, regional, local, and science, politics, and everyday life. The result also shows how trust, distrust, and as-if trust are key activities in knowledge production of environmental problems, such as the loss of biodiversity.

This thesis argues that the actors involved need to realise and acknowledge that knowledge production is a mutual process in which actors must engage in trust and distrust activities. In so doing, it will be possible to understand the complexity of the loss of biodiversity and thus to better manage this problem.

In the context of increasing doubts about the effectiveness of global environmental assessments, the key strategy  to become trustworthy have for many expert organizations, such as IPCC and IPBES, been to enroll world leading scientists to ‘speak truth to power’. However, trust is gained and trust can be lost. This fact became a reality to IPCC in November 2009 when Climategate broke. From being seen as the most trustworthy expert organization on climate change, IPCC lost its trustworthiness in the eyes of many and was forced to work to regain its trust.

How to become a trustworthy organization is in this study understood as a question about epistemic ideals, legitimate knowledge systems, and science-policy relations. The study use a theoretical framework which combines concepts on knowledge systems and science policy relations. Using this theoretical framework, the study analyses the introduction of early career scientist as an example of IPCC’s efforts to regain trust in the aftermaths of Climategate.

The study aims to analyze IPCC’s introduction of early career scientists in the role of chapter scientist and how it relates to IPCC’s ambitions to create expertise and gain epistemic authority.

During the fifth assessment report, IPCC for the first time officially enrolling early career scientists to assist in the assessment. With this decision, IPCC partly diverted from its previous strategy on how to gain trust (by enrolling world leading scientists). The decision raises questions. If trust is gained by enrolling world leading scientist; why was early career scientists enrolled in IPCC, what role were they supposed to play in the organization as well as in the relation between science and policy, and how could early career scientists contribute in IPCC’s effort to regain trust?

The study is based on documents and interviews. The study shows how the introduction of early career scientists is an example of a changed relation between science and non-science, and an acknowledgment that trust in a positions, such as ‘leading scientist’, does not automatically mean trust in an assessment.

For IPCC, the key to create become trustworthy has been to enroll world leading scientists. With AR5 IPCC enrolled early career scientists to assist as chapter scientists. This paper explores the role created for early career scientists and how this role is to be understood in terms of credibility.

In this study, we explore the social construction of the monarch butterfly as a conservation icon in order to understand how the butterfly has come to be endowed with the power to shape public conversations and potentially alter policy and practice. Our analysis is guided by the sociological concepts of coproduction and boundary objects, which reveal how this butterfly has animated and sustained conversations across diverse organizational boundaries. We find that engagement with narratives of beauty, natural wonder, scientific discovery, conservation imperatives, and civic duty has allowed the monarch to enroll actors in a broad network that gives rise to surprising, emergent properties. These properties make the monarch a powerful communication vehicle and a potent ally in environmental politics. Our analysis of the historical and contemporary construction of the monarch as an icon contributes to ongoing efforts to bring resources from critical social science to bear on the strengthening of science-policy–practice interfaces.

Global knowledge assessments such as the IPCC play a key role for our understanding of climate change, as well as the direction of policy to combat it. Thus, IPCC’s assessments have a framing effect that influences the potential and direction of sustainability transformations. The IPCC has been criticized for its natural scientific dominance which has favored a narrow set of solutions that do not address the root causes of co2 emissions, such as growth. As a consequence of this criticism there have been enduring calls for the inclusion of a broader set of perspectives in the IPCC. In this paper we present two different pathways for increased inclusion and influence of the IPCC that derive from current theoretical debates. We use these two perspectives to explore IPCC introduction of early career scientists, the role they play in the organization, and how this role is to be understood in terms of creating an opportunity for institutional change and sustainability transformations. The introduction of early career scientists partly divert from IPCC’s previous strategy to reach sustainability by enrolling world leading scientists to 'speak truth to power'. The change can be seen in the light of a growing work load, but it also involves the inclusion of a new group and the opportunity to, at least partly meet the criticism regarding lack of inclusion. Empirically, the study analyze interviews, documents, and scientific journal articles. Theoretically, the study elaborate on how the socialization process can enhance deliberative capability for sustainability transformations.

Implications for sustainability transformations: Global knowledge assessments does not per se result in sustainability transformations. Knowledge assessments may be organized in ways that either prevent or enable transformative changes. Due to its framing effect, a reflective and deliberate organization, execution, and use of knowledge assessments is crucial to enable future sustainability transformations.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been criticized for having a limited impact on policy decisions and actions. To enhance the IPCC’s impact, it has been argued that the organization needs to adopt a more inclusive assessment process. However, what that means in terms of institutional changes is contested. Two main strands are discernible in the literature: studies advocating for moderate versus radical changes. In light of these two possible pathways, this study analyzes how the new role of Chapter Scientist shapes the conditions for socialization and what implications this may have for the future direction of the IPCC’s deliberative capacity. By identifying the norms and logic that guide inclusion in the role of Chapter Scientists, the study sheds light on which path the organization is moving. The study shows how the IPCC sustains a moderate path of inclusion and deliberation, as well as illustrates how the introduction of the role of Chapter Scientists could open up the organization to more radical institutional changes, which some view as essential.

Expert organizations are often described as facilitators of the interactions between science and policy. In managing this boundary, they must also manage other boundaries, such as those between different knowledge systems and between different categories of actors. However, how this intersectional boundary work is performed, and what it implies, is still unexplored territory. Focusing on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), this study contributes knowledge on the intersectionality of boundary work and how it influences the production of global policy-relevant knowledge. This is done by examining how IPBES socializes junior experts to become senior experts. This socialization process makes a number of norms and ideals visible and enables an analysis of how the know- how of boundary work is passed forward from one generation of experts to the next. The study analyzes three boundaries: between senior and junior experts, between science and policy, and between scientific knowledge and indigenous and local knowledge. The findings show how intersectional boundary work is crucial in the creation of expert organizations and policy-relevant knowledge. In the case of IPBES, this study shows how the institutionalization of the organization unintentionally has created restrictions for the boundary work between different knowledge systems.

Capacity building has been identified as being of importance for the Intergovernmental Science-PolicyPlatform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). As the IPBES is becoming an influentialexpert organization, it is essential to examine what capacity building means in its context, what capacitiesit has built, and what implications these capacities have. This study explores these issues byfocusing on the IPBES's general strategy for capacity building, the IPBES's fellowship programme and towhat extent there are additional capacity building needs that can be addressed. The study shows that theIPBES has focused its capacity building efforts on the science side of the science-policy interface while,thus far, it has neglected to build capacities on the policy side of the interface. The study provides insightinto how capacity building for the science-policy interface sets preconditions for science-policy relationsat different levels and scales within biodiversity and ecosystem services and beyond.

The Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has played an important role in assessing knowledge and raising awareness of biodiversity loss, and it is now also mandated to assess and support processes of transformative change. This perspective paper argues that the transformative change assessment entails key elements of transformative agency, which, along with the performative role of IPBES, makes it relevant to re-conceptualize the organization as a transformative agent. This new role will change IPBES and brings attention to risks related to undermining the credibility, relevance and legitimacy of IPBES, but it also brings opportunities for innovations that may strengthen the organization, including furthering public reasoning, acknowledging ambiguities and disagreements, ensuring scientific autonomy and balancing governmental power in the organization. As IPBES takes on the fundamental challenge of transformative change, critical scrutiny and democratic debate regarding its function as a political actor are more important than ever.

The concept boundary organization has been introduced to identify and explain a specific way of organizing the interface between science and policy. Although the original meaning of the concept has been criticized, the term has come to be frequently used in studies of knowledge transfer and science-policy relations. This usage constitutes the reason for this paper, which investigates how the concept of boundary organization has come to be used and defined and explores its contribution to the discussion of the organization of the science-policy interplay. The analysis finds that despite its spread and usage, the concept boundary organization does not refer to any specific form of organization and does not per se give any guidance about how to organize science-policy interplay. Instead, boundary organization is mainly used as an empirical label when studying the governance of expertise and the management of science-policy interfaces. This finding is also true for studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which describe that organization as a boundary organization without saying anything about what that label means in terms of institutional design and practical implications. However, to label an organization as a boundary organization nevertheless works performatively; it shapes an organization’s identity, may provide legitimacy, and can also stabilize the interactions between it and other organizations. Therefore, boundary organization is an important concept, but primarily as a way to facilitate interaction. Thus, the focus of research should be on analyzing how the concept is used and what its implications are for the organization studied.

Organizations conducting global environmental assessments (GEAs) face the challenge of not only producing trustworthy and policy-relevant knowledge but also recruiting and training experts to conduct these GEAs. These experts must acquire the skills and competencies needed to produce knowledge assessments. By adopting an institutional approach, this paper explores IPBES’s epistemic infrastructure that aims to communicate and form the expertise that is needed to conduct its assessments. The empirical material consists of IPBES’s educational material, which teaches new experts how to perform the assessment. The analysis finds three crucial tasks that experts introduced in the assessments are expected to learn and perform. The paper concludes by discussing the broader importance of the findings that organizations that conduct GEAs are not passive intermediaries of knowledge but instead, through their epistemic infrastructure, generate ways to understand and navigate the world, both for those who create and those who receive the assessment report.

What role do organizational preconditions play in the constitution of expertise? This is the guiding question for this paper, which studies how expertise is shaped in the Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). By organizing the world’s experts on biodiversity, IPBES sets out to produce policy-relevant knowledge. However, in contrast to many other international expert bodies such as the IPCC, IPBES assesses not only scientific knowledge, but also other forms of knowledge, including indigenous and local knowledge. In light of IPBES’s ambition to become an epistemic authority by synthesizing heterogeneous knowledge forms, it is of great interest to investigate how this expertise is constructed. What does ‘expertise’ mean for IPBES, and how are experts selected? Based on documents studies, this study explores the organizational structure through which IPBES assesses and selects experts. The analysis finds that the construction of expertise involves scientific as well as political dimensions. In the conclusions, problems are raised that are related to the outcome of this process and may threaten the epistemic authority of IPBES.

This report presents the results from a pedagogical project focusing students’ writing in higher education. Literature in this field conclude that student writing should be integrated in teaching of the subject with a plan for progression. Teachers’ and students’ experience indicate that students write a lot during their education, but only occasionally get concrete feedback on the writing as such. Focus groups with students showed that students found it difficult to write distinct and to differentiate between text genres. The teachers reported lack of ”tools” to help the students to improve their writing. The report suggest a model for the work with students writing based on goal setting; inventory; identifying problem areas; prioritizing; implementation; and follow-up and revision.

We study how knowledge is produced at the intersection of science, environmental policy and public engagement. Based on analysis of monarch butterfly conservation, we critically evaluate models of knowledge production. The monarch butterfly and its migration have engaged science and enchanted people for over a century, and current threats to monarchs catalyze debates and actions. This paper traces the historical development of knowledge regarding (i) long-term monarch population trends, (ii) the monarch’s dependence on a particular food plant, the milk-weed, and (iii) the monarch as a pollinator. Our analysis indicates that knowledge production and science–policy–practice interfaces cannot be satisfactorily understood through reference to the classical linear model and more recent conceptions of relationally produced knowledge (i.e. co-production). We identify powerful and sometimes contradictory knowledge claims that emerge from unmediated interactions among scientists, advocates, policy makers and diverse publics. The emergent model complements existing models of knowledge production, thereby expanding the conceptual foundation available for making sense of science–policy–practice interfaces.

Science is frequently called upon to provide guidance in the work towards sustainable development. However, for science to promote action, it is not sufficient that scientific advice is seen as competent and trustworthy. Such advice must also be perceived as meaningful and important, showing the need and urgency of taking action. This article discusses how science tries to facilitate action. It claims that the use of scientific storytelling—coherent stories told by scientists about environmental trajectories—are central in this; these stories provide meaning and motivate and guide action. To do this, the storylines need to include both a normative orientation and emotional appeals. Two different cases of scientific storytelling are analyzed: one is a dystopic story about a world rushing towards ecological catastrophe, and the other is an optimistic story about a world making dramatic progress. These macrosocial stories offer science-based ways to see the world and aim to foster and guide action. The article concludes by stating that using storylines in scientific storytelling can elicit fear, inspire hope, and guide action. The storylines connect cold and distant scientific findings to passionate imperatives about the need for social transformation. However, this attachment to emotions and values needs to be done reflexively, not only in order to create engagement with an issue but also to counteract a post-truth society where passionate imperatives go against scientific knowledge.