Workshop: March 23-24, 2007

Scenarios have become a standard tool in the portfolio of techniques that scientists and policy-makers use to envision and plan for the future. Defined as plausible, challenging and relevant stories about how the future might unfold that integrate quantitative models with qualitative assessments of social and political trends, scenarios are a central component in both the international climate change and ecosystem assessment processes. Yet, despite their prevalence, systematic analysis of scenarios as scientific and social processes is in its beginning stages. Questions remain about the scientific credibility of scenarios, the relevance of scenario outputs to various user groups, and the most effective role of scenarios in future global environmental assessment processes.

The objective of the March 2007 workshop is to lay the groundwork for a multi-year research effort that brings new perspectives to bear on the practice and politics of scenarios in environmental governance. We propose a three-pronged strategy for achieving the workshop objective. First, the workshop will bring together scenario producers and users to generate a catalogue of current best practices in the production of scenarios and in the "hand-off" between scenario producers and users. The second strategy is to draw on the experience with scenarios in other issues domains, such as security and energy, which have a longer history of conducting scenario analyses to inform policy-making. Finally, we propose to leverage the analytical tools of the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies to illuminate the science-policy interface mediated by scenarios. Through active dialogue between scenario producers, scenario practitioners, scenario users, and social scientists, we will interrogate the practice and politics of scenarios in global environmental governance.

If you wish to attend, please contact Kate Richardson (Katherine_Richardson@Brown.edu).