Helming, K., Diehl, K., Geneletti, D., & Wiggering, H. (2013). Mainstreaming ecosystem services in European policy impact assessment. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 40, 82–87.
Abstract: The concept of ecosystem services as developed for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is currently the most extensive, international, scientific concept dealing with the interaction between the world’s ecosystems and human well-being. The fundamental asset is seen in the relevancy of the concept at the science–policy interface. Albeit, the mainstreaming of ecosystem services into policy making requires a framework that allows the transition of the scientific concept into the rationale of policy making. We hypothesize that the procedure of policy impact assessment is a suitable venue for this transition. This brings up two questions: 1) where in the process of policy impact assessment can ecosystem services be mainstreamed? 2) How can the impact on ecosystem services properly be accounted for? In this paper we distinguish two groups of policy cases: explicit cases directly addressing ecosystem services, and implicit cases of policies that follow other purposes but may have unintended impacts on ecosystem services as a side effect. The second group covers a wide range of policies for which we set out a framework for mainstreaming of ecosystem services. The framework is exemplary designed for the instrument of ex-ante impact assessment at European policy making level. We reveal that the two concepts of the MA and of the European policy impact assessment are indeed compatible, which makes the integration of the ecosystem service concept possible. We conclude that the linkage of the scientifically validated concept of ecosystem services with the policy concept of impact assessment has the potential of improving the credibility of the latter.
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Helming, K., & Janssen, S. (2014). LIAISE – Linking Impact Assessment instruments with sustainability expertise. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: Impact Assessment for Sustainable Development: Knowledge Systems for the Future The ex ante Impact Asssessment of planned policies has developed as an important part of policy making within the European institutions as well as in Member States. The analysis of expected economic, social and environmental impacts informs the decision making. Collecting relevant and trustworthy evidence is a challenge for policy decisions. At the same time, Impact Assessment is an opportunity for researchers, research organisations and funding agencies to develop knowledge relevant for societal decision making.As a European research consortium LIAISE investigated over the past 4.5 years the Impact Assessment (IA) practices in relation to Sustainable Development (SD). Specific attention was given to the question how the process of IA in various venues (i.e. nation states, supra national organizations and local organizations) is related to the processes of research and knowledge production.
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Helming, K., Podhora, A., & König, H. (2014). Policy impact assessment – a venue for the science policy interface. FACCE MACSUR Mid-term Scientific Conference, 3(S) Sassari, Italy.
Abstract: Policy making aims to align agricultural production with multifunctional services such as environmental conservation, rural development, and economic competitiveness. Policies counteract or reinforce external driving forces such as climate change, global economic developments, demography, consumption patterns. They considerably affect decision making of farmers. Because of the interaction and non-linear feedback loops with socio-economic and geophysical processes of the land use systems, policies are difficult to design, and their impacts are difficult to anticipate. The policy making community articulates an emerging demand for science based evidence in support of the policy process. Ex-ante impact assessment of policy making provides the legal basis to fuel scientific evidence into the policy process. For researchers, impact assessment is a means to structure the analysis of human-environment interactions. For policy makers, impact assessment is a means to better target policy decisions towards sustainable development. The integration of both requires a mutual understanding of the respective objectives and operational restrictions within the scientific and policy-making domains. This paper provides insight into the process of policy impact assessment and how research based methods and tools can best feed into it. Three aspects are outlined: the co-design of the assessment between policy makers and researchers; the integration of quantitative analysis with participatory valuation methods; and the robustness and transparency of the analytical methods.
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Köchy, M., Bishop, J., Lehtonen, H., Scollan, N., Webber, H., Zimmermann, A., et al. (2017). Challenges and research gaps in the area of integrated climate change risk assessment for European agriculture and food security (Vol. 10).
Abstract: Priorities in addressing research gaps and challenges should follow the order of importance, which in itself would be a matter of defining goals and metrics of importance, e.g. the extent, impact and likelihood of occurrence. For improving assessments of climate change impacts on agriculture for achieving food security and other sustainable development goals across the European continent, the most important research gaps and challenges appear to be the agreement on goals with a wide range of stakeholders from policy, science, producers and society, better reflection of political and societal preferences in the modelling process, and the reflection of economic decisions in farm management within models. These and other challenges could be approached in phase 3 of MACSUR.
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König, H., Helming, K., Ayalon, O., Benami, E., & Palatnik, R. R. (2014). Curriculum for training course on policy impact assessment (Vol. 3).
Abstract: A one-week MACSUR training course on policy impact assessment was held in March 2014 at Haifa University in Israel. The course was organised by ZALF (Hannes König, Katharina Helming) and Haifa University (Ofira Ayalon, Edan Benami, Ruslana Palatnik), targeting at the participation of Post-Docs and PhD students associated to the MACSUR consortium. The Framework for Participatory Impact Assessment (FoPIA) was used as the main method for the course to support structuring the policy impact assessment. The Israelian MACSUR case study of the Ramat Menashe Biosphere was used the test case of assessing alternative policy options and sustainability trade-offs. No Label
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