From marine climate change impacts to marine legislation: lessons from the science-policy interface

In recent decades, the body of evidence on climate change including that for marine impacts has grown rapidly leading to a number of challenges, including the need to collate and summarise a large volume of information and to be able to analyse and interpret complex messages for a wide variety of stakeholders from scientists to policy-makers and the wider public. The Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP) has been functioning at the science-policy interface for over ten years collating, assessing and interpreting information on marine climate change impacts. This experience, and the fact that the MCCIP model is being more widely adopted nationally and globally, provides an opportunity to look at lessons learned in working in the science-policy interface with a focus on the Scientific Integrity and Independence Risk Management Scheme (SIIRMS). This scheme was developed by MCCIP as a framework for providing climate information and advice to policy and decision-makers. Examples are provided of the impact of MCCIP on policy and the development of marine legislation along with other examples of how marine biodiversity information being utilized for policy needs.