Le projet ARTISTICC soumis au BELMONT FORUM

[jpvanderlinden]

Delivering international environmental research to arctic coastal communities: the « ARTISTICC » project.
The ARTISTICC (Adaptation research, a trans-disciplinary transnational community and policy centred approach) project is based on the understanding that the suboptimal delivery of international environmental research to local coastal communities is in itself a critical barrier of adaption to climate change. Removing this barrier calls for research on the ties that can be established between science (natural, human, social including economics) and the reduction of local emerging vulnerabilities.
ARTISTICC’s goal is to apply innovative standardized trans-disciplinary approaches to develop robust, socially, culturally and scientifically, community centred adaptation strategies as well as a series of associated policy briefs. The approach used in the project is based on the strong understanding that adaptation is: (a) still "a concept of uncertain form”; (b) a concept dealing with uncertainty; (c) a concept that calls for an analysis that goes beyond the traditional disciplinary organization of science, and; (d) an unconventional process in the realm of science and policy integration.
The Arctic dimension of this project is centred on case studies in Greenland, Russia, and Alaska. In every site we analyse how natural science can be used in order to better adapt in the future, how society adapt to current changes and how memories of past adaptations frames current and future processes. ARTISTICC is thus a project fundamentally centred on local communities.
These analyses allow for a better understanding of adaptation as a scientific, social, economic and cultural practice in coastal settings. In order to share these results with local communities and policy makers, this in a way that respects cultural specificities while empowering stakeholders, ARTISTICC translates these “real life experiments” into stories and artwork that are meaningful to those affected by climate change. ARTISTICC is thus a research project that is profoundly culturally mediated.
The scientific results and the culturally mediated productions will thereafter be used in order to co-construct, with NGOs and policy makers, policy briefs, i.e. robust and scientifically legitimate policy recommendations regarding coastal adaptation. This co-construction process will be in itself analysed with the goal of increasing science’s performative functions in the universe of evidence-based policy making