Timeline
- Date request received: 08/2018
- Call for Experts: 06/12/2018
- Date of experts selection: 02/2019
- Date of EWG meeting: 01/03/2019
This request was initially put to Eklipse by DG Environment in August 2018 and entitled: “How could the comments from the scientific community support the comments/questions of the EU negotiators of the IPBES SPM on Global assessment?”
Selection of an Experts Working Group
EKLIPSE established a transparent and inclusive consultative process to engage the EU scientific community in this endeavour by selecting an Expert Working Group (EWG) from different disciplines for an in-depth analysis of the IPBES global assessment for supporting the negotiators from the EU and its Member States. EKLIPSE also aimed to raise awareness of the EU wide scientific community on the importance of IPBES Global Assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services for policy-making and, in particular, for the post-2020 biodiversity policy frameworks to be adopted at the EU and global level.
The longer-term objective is to ensure a better engagement and active involvement of EU scientists in international policy negotiations as a recurring process supported by the EU and its Member States and activated through platforms such as Eklipse.
The specific aims of the EWG were to (1) assess whether the SPM key messages are justified by the content of the full IPBES GA report, (2) assess which key messages and visuals in the SPM are the most critical to defend and keep in the SPM, (3) assess the needs for clarification of the SPM based on the full report chapters, (3) identify which key messages are missing in the SPM (with proper anchors to the report chapters), (4) assess which key visuals from the report chapters should be lifted to the SPM, and (5) enrich the SPM with elements from the report chapters, as needed.
Answering the request
In May 2019, a final report of this request was published, which provides the summary of findings by the EWG analyzing the links between the IPBES Global Assessment and its Summary for Policymakers.
During the EWG’s working period and throughout the Plenary, the EWG, the Eklipse team and the requesters from DG Environment collected a substantial amount of process-wise experience related to this type of science-policy collaboration, which may be helpful for similar Eklipse EWGs and actions in the future. Therefore, the lessons learnt to summarize process-related experience and lessons learnt from the action “Supporting the EU negotiators on the IPBES Global Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers” help design future Eklipse mechanism actions related to IPBES and supporting EU negotiators.
The importance of expert working groups providing assistance and advice to decision-makers is ever increasing. The experience of the Eklipse EWG on “Supporting the EU negotiators on the IPBES Global Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers” has shown that such working groups have a high potential. When well-managed, experts’ different countries of origin and expertise areas can represent a huge asset. The group has illustrated that thanks to the wide variety of expertise, technical experience and high motivation for dialogue and collaboration, experts’ resulting understanding of methodologies, approaches, and issues, and their ability to provide useful material for the EU negotiators, was substantial. This model of collaboration might be promising for future tighter inclusion of decision-makers in similar groups.
Finalisation
On 05.2019, the report on “Supporting the EU negotiators on the IPBES Global Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers” was completed and published.
