BUT WHAT IS EVIDENCE?

Today in the Clyde auditorium, we have been provided evidence that there are more and more people interested in evidence-based decision making for environmental management. And there is evidence that it is not about good wishes and intentions, but there are facts, actions and results. The Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE, www.environmentalevidence.org)  is a network of people working together to promote and conduct systematic reviews. This is a very powerful form of methodical and standardised way of synthesizing and assessing existing knowledge. Speakers reported about their personal experience of conducting systematic reviews, but we also heard about successful collaboration with decision- and policy-makers, the creation of new CEE Centres, the development of new research projects related to the need for innovative statistics or dissemination tools (podcasts, policybriefs), and how the systematic approach is contributing to a prototype of knowledge synthesis and transfer at the science-policy interface, in relation to IPBES (www.biodiversityknowledge.eu).