How can we best develop an inclusive societal vision for a just transition towards sustainability? At what spatial scale should such visions be developed and how to reconcile across scales? How can we best manage the polycentric governance to implement these visions?

Background

Defra’s areas of responsibility cover a wide range of interacting natural and human systems. Changes that affect one outcome are often likely to have knock-on implications for others. Policy in areas such as land management, biodiversity conservation, pollution prevention, food security, fisheries, and waste management, need to be designed in the absence of perfect knowledge of how human and natural processes interact. It can be particularly difficult to attribute cause and effect in such complex systems where evidence is often partial and fragmented.

Consideration of the issues that Defra deals with as parts of systems, i.e. in terms of relationships between the parts can help us to unpick complex or seemingly chaotic situations, and better deliver robust positive outcomes for society. To facilitate more effective decision making, a range of approaches and specialties need to be applied to the above challenges.

Next steps

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Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DEFRA Research and innovation interests GOVUK

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