Roles for scientific societies to engage with conservation policy.
Science and decision making can influence one another at several stages in the policy process. Scientists raise new issues for policy makers, policy needs shape research programs, scientific knowledge informs policy decisions, or research results are used to support or challenge established policies (Rudd 2011). Institutional arrangements that facilitate the integration of science and decision making include training and professional exchanges for individual scientists and conservation practitioners (Jenkins et al. 2012), formal linkages between research and management institutions (Cook et al. 2013), and boundary organizations that specialize in the science–policy interface (Bednarek et al. 2015). Careful consideration of how best to integrate science and policy is especially important given the current political climate, in which the role of science in public discourse is hotly debated around the world (Carroll et al. 2017).