The overall aim of WP 2 of the project is to improve understanding of the science-policy dialogue with regards to the role of biodiversity in underpinning livelihoods and ecosystem services. This will be achieved by identifying the factors that constrain or facilitate communication on this issue between scientists and policy-makers, and recommending steps to improve this exchange in Europe and elsewhere.

This WP will assess the ways scientific knowledge on the underpinning role of biodiversity in livelihoods and ecosystem services is communicated and negotiated between science and policy. It will particularly focus on the question of if and how such knowledge is directly or indirectly taken up to inform policy, and the factors that facilitate or hamper such processes.

Through interviews we will identify and provide background information for major areas of decision-making in which knowledge on the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem services and livelihoods is considered particularly relevant, but where, from the viewpoint of scientists, scientific knowledge appears to be taken up in an unsatisfactory way. We will also look at cases where policy-makers feel that scientists have not delivered the necessary knowledge. Although the amount of knowledge on the role of biodiversity with regard to livelihoods and ecosystem services is substantial, there are many gaps and uncertainties. 

Next we will focus on a selection of cases and issues that allows us to explore the factors that constrain or facilitate communication in more depth.