Citizens Advisory Forum for Living with Environmental Change (LWEC)
Sciencewise-ERC funded project 2010 - 2011
Background
The Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, in partnership with Sciencewise-ERC is supporting a Citizens Advisory Forum. This is an opportunity for engagement to have a widespread impact... Find out more
Aims and Objectives
- To inform the strategic development of LWEC’s research by helping to identify research priorities and commenting on strategic aims for the programme
- To identify areas of particular public concern about environmental change, so that the commissioning and communication of research by LWEC, and its partners, can take account of the needs and concerns of society
A secondary objective of the Forum is to offer views on different forms of communicating results and outputs to different audiences
Delivered By
LWEC
LWEC is a ten year environmental research programme which represents a partnership of organisations.
OPM
OPM is an independent centre for the development of public services and provides consultancy, research and leadership development.
Sciencewise-ERC is completing the evaluation of this project.
Latest Status Updates
- Evaluation report published - findings suggest the Forum provided an in depth but cost effective approach to public dialogue on some key issues around climate change.
- Blog post from Melanie Knetsch (LWEC) 'Public support for envinronmental change research'
- 7 February - Perceptions and priorities blog by Owen Tarrant of the EA.
- 5 February - third forum session
- 27 November - second forum session. Topics were research on flooding and on climate change adaptation.
- First research area chosen for discussion by the forum is research on flooding
- 16 October - first dialogue session held in Bristol
Find Out More
- Living With Environmental ChangeLWEC Homepage
- Public Attitudes to Environmental ChangeLWEC Research Synthesis
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeUN climate change talks
- Decisions from CopenhagenMET office information page
- Infrastructure, Engineering and Climate Change AdaptationThe Royal Academy of Engineering
Key Impacts
While it is too soon to identify clear influence on policy at this stage, some areas of impact have been predicted.
- Influence on future policy decisions is expected in the following areas: governance and regulation, the Water Strategy, flooding, and investing more in research into prevention.
- The Forum is expected to have an impact on LWEC public engagement policy.
- The Forum demonstrated the importance of feeding back to public participants and others about the extent to which their views have been taken into account.
Resources
- OPM PresentationSession 1
- Participant handout: Introduction to LWEC ForumSession 1
- Participant handout : Introduction to FloodingSession 1
- OPM PresentationSession 2
- Participant handout: Introduction to Adaptation to climate changeSession 2
- OPM/Dr Lane PresentationSession 3
- Final report: Citizens Advisory Forum
- Summary report: GovernanceSession 3
- Summary report: AdaptationSession 2
- Summary report: FloodingSession 1
- Evaluation report: Citizens Advisory ForumDiane Warburton, Shared Practice
Project Quotes
“We need to look at local areas, everyone is different, so you should know that they’re going to react different ways in different areas.”Forum participant
“It’s better to stop the flood happening in the first place, and then you don’t have to shell out for the cost of the impact.”Forum participant
“I suppose, for me, it’s about understanding what scenarios they are using to plan… Will we be using land in the same way? Will we be able to import as much food? We may not have access to and use of fossil fuels. We will probably be in a very different world in many ways.”Forum participant