Strategic science-policy interfacing to close the knowledge – action gap for sustainable use of biodiversity

Scientific evidence on societal challenges is rapidly increasing, but it is still underused by policy makers. This is manifested for example with the continuing biodiversity loss and unbalanced use of ecosystem services despite cumulating knowledge to justify and enact sustainable use of biodiversity in policy and practice. Various science-policy interfaces (SPI) operate to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. Currently dominating paradigm in science-policy interaction studies focuses on knowledge co-production and has advanced from so-called linear model of “speaking truth to power”, towards “making sense together”. Yet, knowledge co-production approaches focus often on short-term processes or project-based science-policy interactions. The objective of the present paper is to propose a novel concept of strategic science-policy interfacing to help to bridge the knowledge–action gap for sustainable use of biodiversity. Strategic science-policy interfacing takes a longer time, recognizes complexity of governance contexts, and can be summarized as “systemic design for tomorrow” considering policy makers not only as targets of dialogue but as co-designers of long-term strategies. Strategic interfacing is considered to take place at four interconnected levels: individual level, process or project level facilitated by SPIs (e.g. assessment process; process to answer policy makers’ requests), SPI organizational level, and at the level of science-policy landscape in a certain domain, like biodiversity. Furthermore, strategic science-policy interfacing needs to be designed in connection to the specific target it seeks to change. We find three persisting challenges why the knowledge–action gap is still persisting in the biodiversity field: 1) political priorities on other issues override action for biodiversity, 2) mismatch between knowledge supply and policy demand, and 3) a gap between policy agendas and their implementation in practice. This paper examines how three biodiversity-related science-policy interfaces have attempted to overcome these challenges: IPBES, Eklipse, and EU’s Science Service. It is found that IPBES aims to shape policy agendas by intergovernmental setting to develop stronger political priorities for biodiversity among national policy makers and at the global level. Eklipse seeks to create networks of networks and uses open calls to match knowledge users with best expertise and knowledge holders to address the specific knowledge demands in solving real-world problems. Strategic approach by Science Service seeks to support implementation of existing political commitment expressed in EU’s Biodiversity Strategy 2030 by providing evidence to support implementation and by providing scientific answers to pressing questions identified by policy actors. These strategies go beyond single processes of knowledge co-production, and the examined SPIs are also linked to longer time span strategies to close gaps in science-policy landscape working towards sustainable use of biodiversity. Recommendations for strategic science-policy interfacing include tailoring SPIs to catalyze specific kinds of policy change, to start strategic design already before formal establishment of an SPI, to try to anticipate future policy developments, and to seek synergies and coalitions to communicate shared vision for biodiversity. SPIs can benefit significantly from having general long-term strategy to catalyze policy impacts in biodiversity domain, but also to contribute to solving other societal problems by bridging knowledge – action gap.