Communicating science to policy makers: A case for embedded ecologists

Basic research has been viewed metaphorically as science feeding a “reservoir” of knowledge in which benefits flow downstream to society over the long term.  This model has been questioned because it lacks political accountability and assumes societal benefits are inherent in all scientific knowledge.  Moreover, there are cultural and procedural barriers which block the flow of information between the science and policy communities.  How then to make the interaction between ecology and policy more effective and timely?  Ecologists typically would answer that we need to better communicate our research with the implication that the transfer is largely one way.  But is political decision making information limited?  Or, is it limited by the willingness of politicians to accept scientific information?  Or, is the information in a form and delivered in a time frame that is usable by politicians?  In this presentation, I suggest that answers to these questions require an insider’s knowledge of the process of political decision making.  Moreover, interpersonal relationships between ecologists and users of our knowledge must occur at multiple scales, which for most ecologists occur at the local level, whereas at the national level fewer opportunities exist to develop interpersonal relationships with policy makers.  To close the gap between ecological knowledge and users of that knowledge at the state and national level, I propose the concept of embedding ecologists into the political system, similar in concept to how the U.S. military embedded journalists into combat units during the Iraq war.