Developing Evaluation Indicators to Improve the Process of Coproducing Usable Climate Science

Abstract

Resource managers and decision-makers are increasingly tasked with integrating climate change science into their decisions about resource management and policy development. This often requires climate scientists, resource managers, and decision-makers to work collaboratively throughout the research processes, an approach to knowledge development that is often called "coproduction of knowledge." The goal of this paper is to synthesize the social science theory of coproduction of knowledge, the metrics currently used to evaluate usable or actionable science in several federal agencies, and insights from experienced climate researchers and program managers to develop a set of 45 indicators supporting an evaluation framework for coproduced usable climate science. Here the proposed indicators and results from two case studies that were used to test the indicators are presented, as well as lessons about the process of evaluating the coproduction of knowledge and collaboratively producing climate knowledge.