The National Academies’ Committee to Advise the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) (“the Committee”) is using its convening authority to support USGCRP’s engagement with a wide range of potential users in its work. During November and December 2021, the National Academies is organizing a pilot series of listening sessions, designed to begin new conversations with researchers and users of global change information** and for the development of long-term engagement strategies with USGCRP.
A total of five listening sessions will be held. Each session will be loosely defined by a topical areas, (Water, Health, Energy, Transportation and Infrastructure, or Food). Participants will have the opportunity to provide oral or written input during these sessions.
In particular, USGCRP is seeking input on the following broad themes:
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion: What role should USGCRP play in advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion? Which actions should be prioritized to fully incorporate these values in research, community engagement, and workforce development? How do we implement them?
- Advancing science: What are the priority gaps in foundational science/methods that require enhanced long-term investments?
- Use-inspired research: How do we ensure that USGCRP science and products are better driven by and connected to users, including, for example, improved use of consultation/collaboration, translation, dissemination, informing climate services, socio-economic sciences integration?
- Socio-economic sciences integration: What are the priorities for integrating socio-economic sciences into our program? How should USGCRP better incorporate this science into our program to improve our ability to inform decisions?
**For the purposes of this effort, global change information includes climate change and other dimensions of global change (e.g., biodiversity, population, land use, pollution), and information related to future exposures, vulnerabilities, and capacities. For example, this would include, but not be limited to: increases in sea level and tidal flooding potential; changes in the frequency, intensity, and amounts of precipitation; increases in air and water temperatures; increases in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events including extreme heat, storms, droughts, and wildfires; mitigation of and adaptation to climate change; biodiversity loss; population growth and settlement patterns; development and transformation of land uses; other forms of pollution; and other sources, consequences, or policy implications of global change.
Helpful comments for these sessions: Through USGCRP, federal agencies coordinate climate and global change research and use the results to create tools and assessments to help people make decisions in a changing climate. Particularly helpful feedback might include ideas on emerging, large-scale scientific questions related to global change and/or response, especially those where interagency collaboration will be critical; specific information on how science is or is not being used to inform societal response to global change, and why; and knowledge gaps and obstacles to implementing scientific tools or knowledge.
USGCRP Strategic Plan: USGCRP is developing its next decadal strategic plan, and expects to release a draft prospectus with a public comment opportunity before the end of 2021. While these listening sessions may help inform the development or implementation of this plan, individual feedback on the prospectus should be submitted through the public comment mechanism.