Contrary to the common belief that policy-making operates in tandem with electoral cycles or with current scientific information, the policy-making process has no defined time frame or cycle and there is no way to predict the timing of decisive action on an issue. Consequently, the policy process is complex and non-linear, involving a broad set of actors and forces, both inside and outside of government, that interact in complex and varied ways in the making of any policy decision, all of which can play out over years to decades. Making science-policy interaction even more challenging, scientists have limited time, opportunities, or in many cases incentive to work with decision makers on specific environmental issues.
I address the overarching question of how can we make the interaction between ecology and policy more effective and timely? The typical answer by ecologists is that we need to better communicate our research. But is political decision making information limited? Or rather, is it limited by the willingness of politicians to accept scientific information? Or, is the information in a form and delivered in a time frame that is usable by politicians?
Results/Conclusions
I suggest that answers to these questions require an insider’s knowledge of the political decision making process, or in other words experiencing “policy encounters of the third kind”. To gain this knowledge, I propose the concept of embedding ecologists into the political system. That is, we need more ecologists working in positions that play a role in the policy making process. I suggest actions that the ecological science community can undertake to effectively integrate science with public policy, but even better, to encourage individual ecologists to choose career paths embedded within the policy making process. To close, I discuss ways in which students and early career ecologists can acquire the skills and experience necessary to work with policy encounters of the third kind.