Abstract
Despite significant efforts, there are still huge gaps between adopted goals and actual outcomes in environmental policy. Lack of goal fulfilment has been studied since long, and several factors leading to delay have been identified. One area of research that has up to now received little attention is how delay in goal fulfilment is exacerbated by misuse of scientific knowledge and other calculated interventions in the science-policy process. The aim of this project is to produce new knowledge about how interventions in the science-policy process of this kind help to maintain the goal-outcome gap in environmental policy. The project will address the following questions: What types of delay mechanisms affect the achievement of environmental goals? In what ways does goal failure depend on factors such as production of false knowledge, intentional misinterpretations of scientific evidence, fabricated scientific disagreement, misrepresentations of value/goal conflicts involved or inappropriate uses of decision aids? How can attempts at misrepresenting science be counteracted and how can this knowledge be used to bridge the goal-outcome gap in the Swedish system of EQOs? The research will be performed using literature reviews, stakeholder interviews and roundtable conferences as primary data sources and case study methodology as primary method for data analysis and synthesis.
Sweden