Consultation | Developing an Online Tracker for Scientific Needs in International Chemicals and Waste Governance

A new Online Tracker for Scientific Needs in International Chemicals and Waste Governance is being developed by the Ecological System Design (ESD) of ETH Zurich, in close collaboration with the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions.

About the project

The Ecological System Design (ESD) of ETH Zurich is developing a new Online Tracker for Scientific Needs in International Chemicals and Waste Governance, in close collaboration with the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions. This new project aims at fostering engagement of the scientific community and catalyze research to support informed policy-making and effective implementation of the MEAs and voluntary frameworks in international chemicals and waste governance. The tracker will monitor and present policy needs in relevant format, facilitating the production of policy-relevant scientific outputs in a timely manner.

With the support from ETH Zurich and the Impact Collaboration Programme of the Geneva Science-Policy Interface, it will be implemented under the guidance of an advisory board of leading scientists and experts from different disciplines and from all UN regions. The tracker will be designed to avoid overlapping or duplication with existing science-policy interface bodies.

About the consultation

This workshop will bring together the main Geneva-based stakeholders acting in the field of chemicals and waste management in order to harness their perspectives on the Online Tracker approach. The objective is to strengthen the project’s relevance and ensure it contributes in an appropriate way to the specific policy to science communication needs of the MEAs and voluntary framework such as the forthcoming Beyond 2020 Framework on sound management of chemicals and waste.

Summary

The Online Tracker approach

The lack of translation of policymakers’ needs back to the scientific community is an important challenge in many governance areas. The Online Tracker for Scientific Needs in International Chemicals and Waste Governance is an initiative to enhance this communication route in the Chemicals and Waste domain. The overall goal of the project is to assess and translate needs for scientific information under the Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm (BRS) and Minamata conventions into a set of scientific questions accessible to the international scientific community through an online platform. The project is implemented at ETH Zürich with the support of Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI), and in collaboration with the Secretariats of the BRS conventions and the Minamata convention.

Currently, the project team is reviewing policy needs and translating them into scientific questions. At the same time, the project team is working on establishing an online presence of the tracker. Inputs from the BRS and Minamata Conventions will feed into the process through consultations and reviews. An advisory group of scientists and regulators, covering different disciplines, conventions and regions, has also been established and will be consulted throughout the process. The Online Tracker could be launched at the beginning of the third quarter of this year after beta-testing.

Insights from the stakeholders and discussion

Participants at the consultation welcomed the initiative and its ambition to improve uptake of policy needs by academia in their research. Several thoughts and concerns were also raised, including

its role for ensuring uptake of policy questions by the scientific community in a timely manner
its contribution to Parties to the conventions, especially developing countries
needs for engaging with other stakeholders, most notably industry actors and donors
how to deal with a wide variety of interrelated questions with varied time horizons
level of questions that could be addressed, in terms of existing or new research
potential issues and credibility without an authoritative group to assess the information produced
necessity of addressing interlinkages with other clusters such as climate and biodiversity
importance of multi-disciplinarity and sectoral considerations within the tracker
issues of funding and resources which the scientific community will need to address policy-relevant scientific questions raised through the tracker
duration of the project timeline and potential overlap with established bodies
project scope – it is a quick-responding tool addressing a very specific issue in the science-policy interface rather than a fully-fledged science-policy interface

The discussion raised a lot of food for thought, which was welcomed by the project leaders. Engagement with stakeholders on specific aspects of the tools will continue in the future.

Documents

About the project