Knowledge quality assessment as a sensemaking device (KQA-SMD)

Knowledge quality assessment as a sense-making device: an enquiry into uncertainties, agency and climate change

Climate change adaptation lies at the crux of a series of challenges that are directly related to knowledge, knowledge (co)production and assessment. Human communities need to, simultaneously, face increasing, multi-dimensional uncertainties, associated to never experienced before environmental changes, and face associated ever shifting value systems and priorities. Local communities must simultaneously interpret uncertainties at hand, make sense of what is being experienced, while keeping alive and well the individual and collective ability to act.

The research team of KQA-SMD proposes to combine our expertises to conceptualize how the treatment of deep uncertainties through knowledge quality assessment (KQA) may enhance the capacity for action through sensemaking.

We will organize focused small committee workshops in order to jointly develop the theoretical foundations of the issues at hand, device an analytical procedure, and write up the results in the form of a paper.

This work will allow for the development of a concept note and associated texts and consortium (4 countries, 5 partners) in order to be ready to use these in future EU, or international (Belmont Forum and others) calls for proposals.

Primary objectives

a) Scientific: clarify through theoretical and empirical enquiries theconnection between knowledge quality assessment, sensemaking and agency in the face of climate change.

b) Networking: produce textual material, with a consortium, that will be used to answer to future call for proposals.

Secondary objectives

a) Scientific: give access to a PhD candidate, Elisabeth Jensen, to resource persons (sensemaking, iterative grounded theory, actor network theory) that are working in the greater Paris area.

b) Scientific: submit for publication a paper entitled (working title): "In need of sensemaking devices: Knowledge Quality Assessment and human agency in the face of a changing climate"

c) Networking: sustain the relationship between SVT and CEARC in between funded project periods.