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Knowledge Curation in Climate Assemblies

KNOCA Briefing No. 9: Selection and Presentation of Evidence
© ICA - The Irish Citizen Assembly
September 2023

This briefing shows that the evidence provision stage in climate assemblies is of paramount importance to the formation of attitudes of participants and to their collective recommendation writing.

Climate assemblies allow a diverse, randomly selected group of citizens a platform to formulate evidence-based recommendations for politically addressing climate change, and the question of how to curate knowledge – how to select, organize, and present evidence in climate assemblies – raises important problems that need to be addressed:

  • How should the relevant thematic and scientific areas be demarcated – i.e., what counts as relevant evidence, and what does not?
  • Who should make decisions concerning the selection and demarcation of relevant evidence, and how should decision-making processes be organized?
  • How should experts, witnesses, or speakers be selected, and how should they be briefed?
  • How can expert knowledge be communicated to citizens with different educational and cultural backgrounds and learning styles?
  • Should assembly members take active part in the work of knowledge curation, and if so, how can they be equipped to do so?

This briefing offers a survey of the current literature on knowledge curation within deliberative processes and climate assemblies before drawing lessons from 5 national climate assemblies across Europe on how to best organise knowledge curation.

Authors

‍Malte Frøslee Ibsen
PhD
The Danish Board of Technology
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