Workshop E

On the one hand there is a pressing need for more investigation into the complex relationship between environmental issues, economic development and human well-being that is compatible with the Earth's ability to regenerate.

On the other hand, there exists a growing sense of urgency to act because of problems like hunger and environmental deterioration becoming more pressing.

This raises a number of questions. Some of these questions are familiar but still in need of further clarification like: How to organize research in order to strengthen the link between research and policymaking? Or, how to present scientific knowledge so as to make it more accessible to the policy community of state and non-state actors? 

But there also exists an important new, additional question that has so far received less attention. It is the question of how to act on the basis of the current knowledge stock that is in many respects still incomplete, ensuring that all options for eventually further policy corrections are kept open and new insights can be fed into ongoing policy processes. 

This panel will focus on both sets of issues, with a special emphasis on the second set of questions. It aims at identifying topics of research that could help shed new light on how to create and manage a more continuous and speedy process of learning from ongoing policy processes and feeding improved knowledge back into policymaking and implementation.