May 2012

The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) was founded in 1985 in the US. Most of its members are situated there. However, there have been attempts to internationalize the SCB by establishing regional sections in Africa, Asia and Europe. The SCB publishes the scientific journals Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters and the Conservation Magazine, which also addresses non-scientists.

The SCB Europe Section (SCB-ES) was founded in 2002. According to its website it had 500 members in 2010.
The official objectives of the SCB Europe are “To increase awareness and understanding of European conservation issues” and “To advocate for biological diversity and willingly offer and promote the role of scientific review in assessment of conservation strategies.”, demonstrating a relatively strong engagement to address policy needs. The SCB also engages in activities to make research more relevant for policy, by identifying and publishing major conservation policy issues in Europe that could be informed by conservation science, by contributing actively to IPBES, and by engaging in science-policy activities through its policy committee. The aims of the policy committee are inter alia to “Actively promote nature conservation and, thus, advocate as often as necessary“ and to „Inform policy-makers and improve effective communication with them“.

In this test case, we will study the concept of “Action Research” which engages a community of practitioners, in this case at the science-policy interface actors, to draw on their knowledge and perspective for the purpose of improving practice and scientific understanding of what they do This approach requires collaboration of SCB members and SPIRAL partners.
 

Contact: Johannes Timaeus