Green Filters: 'Alternative' Knowledge Intermediaries and Environmental Policy

Dr Wolfgang Rudig, Department of Government, University of Strathclyde
September 1998

The project focuses on 'knowledge intermediaries' as they have emerged in the last twenty years as a direct or indirect result of environmental mobilisation. These 'alternative' intermediaries consist of research organisations that set out to provide 'alternative' expertise to promote environmental causes. Range from government such intermediaries funded research institutes whose agenda has been set by 'green' concerns to research institutes, scientific 'units' or other organisations directly set up by non-governmental environmental organisations.

These organisations appear to be extremely important for our understanding of the 'processing' of 'science' between 'science producers' on the one hand and the general public and political elites on the other. Research on 'alternative' knowledge intermediaries should play a key part of a "Knowledge Transfer" research agenda. Such intermediaries could be seen to operate like 'filters' involved in various selection, 'spinning' and political packaging processes. In so doing, they appear to have a decisive influence on public discourse over specific environmental problems, the setting of political agendas, and, ultimately, the development and implementation of policy.

The first task is to review past research in the social sciences on the role of green 'intermediaries' ('alternative' research institutes, science units of environmental groups) in the production, processing and shaping of 'scientific knowledge'. The second task is to supplement this research review with some independent empirical work on the specific roles of 'alternative' research institutes. 'Alternative' environmental institutes appear to be particularly numerous and influential in Germany, and most of the empirical work will concentrate on the German case. In addition, I will investigate the role of such 'alternative' organisations in the UK, the EU and in one Third World country, Chile, to achieve a broader picture of their role in a variety of political settings.

Such a broad comparative, international review of the field will allow me to develop a research agenda on 'knowledge intermediaries' in the environmental field generally that takes into account the full range of international experience and research.

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