Bridging the gap between science and the stakeholder: the case of climate change research

This paper provides an overview of the EU-funded project 'Modelling the Impact of Climate Extremes' (MICE) and, specifically, the stakeholder collaboration and dissemination activities undertaken during the 3 year project. MICE was a pan-European end-to-end assessment of the potential impacts of climate change on a range of economic sectors important to the region. MICE actively encouraged the promotion of dialogue between the research and stakeholder communities in order to ensure that the research activities undertaken within the project were useful to the wider user community. Five workshops were held during the final 18 months of the project, In addition to these, a workshop report and a non-technical stakeholder-focussed brochure were produced to ensure that results do not remain solely within the academic community. The present paper provides a brief overview of the aims and objectives of the MICE project and describes the 5 workshops, including the rationale behind the structure of the final pan-European workshop, and selected results produced by the MICE Consortium. The main outcomes of the final workshop were (1) that the next 10 to 20 yr are important to stakeholders, whilst projections for the 2080s have limited relevance for decision-makers (2) the reliability of climate models needs to be increased and uncertainties decreased; (3) scientific results should be made accessible to the non-specialist, and stakeholders should be involved in relevant projects, preferably from the design stage; (4) there is the need to recognise and work to bridge the gap between what scientists can realistically achieve and what stakeholders require.