Initiatives for the development of the relationship between climate knowledge and the agricultural sector in the Río de la Plata: exploration of the concepts of knowledge co-production and transference

SIMON CLAUDIA; CARABAJAL, MARIA INES

Luneburg

Conferencia; ITD CONFERENCE 2017 Transdisciplinary Research and Education ? Intercultural Endeavours; 2017

Leuphana University

During the last decades the production of useful climate information has become a topic on the agenda of the international scientific and operational community. The advance of robust knowledge requires rethinking new ways of transmitting information and the generation of new relationships between institutions and different types of information users. In this article we will focus on two research projects that address this complexity, both financed by the Interamerican Institute for Global Change Research. The first one is of a regional scale, centered in the south-east of South America called ?Towards usable climate science: Informing decisions and provision of climate services to the agriculture and water sectors of southeastern South America?, (CRN3035). It aims to collaborate in the construction of useful climate science, which will inform the decision-making of sectors sensitive to climate such as agriculture and the water sector. The second is a national project, developed in Uruguay (CRN3106), entitled ?Transferring climate knowledge in the science-policy interface for adaptation to drought in Uruguay?. Which has the objective to analyze how the climatic information generated by the local institutions is used in the decision making process and how these affect the agricultural sector. In general terms, both projects fall within the paradigm of post-normal science, based on a transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach. In this sense, (1) we analyzed the differences and similarities between the projects, as well as the connections at both the scientific and thematic levels. Likewise, (2) we focused on the methodology implemented by each of them to address the relationship with the various users. Moreover, (3) we compared the concepts of co-production and transference of knowledge, from a historical point of view as they are the main concepts of the described projects. We concluded by (4) proposing how these new participatory / knowledge co-production approaches can collaborate in improving communication mechanisms between climate science and society. To do this we used a qualitative methodology of ethnography in both projects, a historical review of the uses of the different concepts, and semi-structured interviews.