Integrating user values into climate science through co-production

Transdisciplinary approaches such as co-production are gaining prominence for their ability to improve the actionability of sciences and support solutions to complex societal problems. Yet effectively operationalizing co-production processes continues to be a significant challenge and a time-intensive effort. Particularly, there is limited understanding of how the various elements of science evolve during co-production, and how the values and priorities of non-academic societal partners can be robustly integrated into scientific research. In this manuscript, we examine the case study of a long-term transdisciplinary co-production project aimed at improving the credibility of climate modelling and developing actionable climate science for resource management. Drawing on a systematic longitudinal analysis of over 3 years of iterative engagements, we articulate a change pathway that describes how choices in scientific research evolved and transformed through interactions with non-academic partners. We also identify six distinct types of value negotiations that we confronted during the co-production engagements and provide examples of each negotiation-type, including cases where diverse values were easily assimilated, where practical challenges constrained value integration, where values were differently interpreted, as well as cases where values were incompatible. These results extend the philosophical discussions of value negotiations in climate science by providing empirical evidence on how iterative deliberations on values play out in practice. The change-pathway as well as the negotiation-types that we developed offer valuable lessons to other researchers, practitioners or boundary spanners, seeking to facilitate value negotiations and to make co-production processes more effective and efficient.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

This research has received ethical approval from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) Human Subjects Committee (HSC) which is LBNL’s Institutional Review Board (IRB #00006447). Approval was received prior to commencement of the data collection and prior to commencement of each engagement. Approval was received under two protocol IDs - Pro00023183 and Pro00023220. Pro00023183 was approved on 02/06/2020 (MM/DD/YYYY) and covered participant recruitment and data collection spanning from 02/06/2020 to 02/06/2021. Pro00023220 was approved on 01/15/2021 with participant recruitment and data collection spanning from 01/15/2021 and ongoing as the project is continuing (so this protocol covers all engagements after 01/15/2021). The scope of approval included the recruitment of participants, implementation of the engagements (focus groups and surveys), collection of data, analysis of the data, and reporting of results. This research (under both protocols) was determined to be “Exempt” Human Subjects Research by the LBNL HSC. All the research procedures and engagements were performed in accordance with relevant federal regulation, state and local laws, and the United States Department of Energy directives set forth by LBNL’s Human Subjects Committee IRB. All research was conducted in the United States, so no other local approval is applicable.

Informed consent

This research (under both protocols Pro00023183 and Pro00023220) was determined to be “Exempt” from the Common Rule (category 2(ii)) by the LBNL Human Subjects Committee and therefore does not require written and signed informed consent. A modified consent procedure was used according to LBNL Human Subjects Committee protocols Pro00023183 and Pro00023220. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the research engagements (discussions and surveys) through sharing a consent form. All participants were above the age of 18 and therefore able to provide consent for themselves. Participants were asked to review the consent form and were notified that subsequent participation in the research engagements will be taken as consent. Engagement facilitators (KJ, SB and ADJ) shared the consent form via email as well as at the beginning of each engagement, both prior to participation in the research. The consent form included details of the purpose, background and funding for the research, the voluntary nature of the engagement, specifics of the engagement procedures, risks or benefits, storage of data and confidentiality, details of use of data for research and publications, etc. All participants were fully informed that findings from the engagements may be used in research publications but will be done in a manner that protects their anonymity. Informed consent was obtained separately for each focus group discussion and survey that form a part of this research. Dates when the informed consent was obtained are as follows: Pre- workshop survey on storyline research ideas and feedback from practitioners - consent obtained on 02/28/2020 and 03/03/2020; Kick-off workshop and co-produced research plan discussions for each sub-project- consent obtained on 03/17/2020 and 03/18/2020; Focus Group Discussion 1, Practitioner Survey 1 and Scientists Survey 1 for each sub-project - consent obtained on 08/20/2020,09/04/2020 and 01/22/2021; Focus Group Discussion 2, Practitioner Survey 2 and Scientists Survey 2 for each sub-project- consent obtained on 04/09/2021, 04/12/2021 and 07/26/2021; Focus Group Discussion 3, Practitioner Survey 3 and Scientists Survey 3 for each sub-project - consent obtained on 05/27/2022, 06/01/2022 and 08/12/2022.