Not surprisingly, a study of communications between stakeholders in the Baltic RAC found “distrust” and “different levels of communicative skills”, as well as “different understandings of scientific concepts and language”.
The project,”Facilitating Governance of Baltic Seas Fisheries by Improving Communication Among Stakeholders”, is run by a group of researchers at the Gothenburg Center for Public Learning and Understanding of Science (gcPLUS.org) at the Chalmers University of Technology.
The report, based on observations at RAC meetings and in-depth interviews with participants, defines a large set of barriers to building consensus, but suggests roads to improvement, as well, including “designed dialogue techniques, transparent and understandable science communication within the RAC itself, as well as improved feedback loops with the Commission and RAC members’ constituency”.
Last May, gcPLUS and the BS RAC arranged a workshop in Gdynia to introduce these “methods and rationale for mediated dialogues on strongly contested science-related issues”.