This research project proposes to use ethnographic, archival, and interview methods to understand the authorial and decision-making work of scientific assessors, particularly those of the upcoming Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This project marks the first time social scientists will observe the processes of the IPCC in real time, from the inside. The researchers will have a sustained opportunity to observe, analyze, and communicate how expert assessors shape climate assessments during the writing process. In turn, this research will be distributed among researchers as well as climate policy practitioners to help improve the application of climate science to policy, including the inclusion of diverse representation in the assessment process as well as the portrayal and communication of consensus, conflict, bias, error, risk, and uncertainty. This project will inform curricular development of a program in Climate Studies for undergraduate students, improve representation and capacity building among diverse climate scholars including undergraduate students and social science researchers in developing countries, communicate research findings to the public, and feed research findings back to the assessor community.
The primary purpose of this project is to contribute to ongoing scholarly attempts to understanding scientific knowledge production. The field of science studies has provided ample evidence of the empirical inadequacy of algorithmic models of scientific knowledge production, and has of late come to stress the importance of expert judgment within diverse communities. This project explicitly addresses the practice of expert judgment in a major domain of contemporary scientific activity. It will also provide suggestions to improve the assessment and decision process. Assessments are expensive in terms of time, money, and scientific human capital, and it important for the scientific community re-assess the commitment that has been made to them. The researchers will produce policy-relevant and scientist-relevant papers to convey project findings to the IPCC and involved scientist assessors. They will also present to user communities, such as at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings.
