D6.6 Project Synthesis: "Recommendations for science and society interactions: A case study from ML"

This document has been developed within the framework of the FP7 MARLISCO project that seeks to raise public awareness, trigger co-responsibility across the different sectors and facilitate dialogue between the different actors on both the problems and the potential solutions related to marine litter. The project focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of mechanisms to better understand and communicate the problem in its environmental and social dimensions, encouraging society to gain a deeper understanding of the issue of marine litter and actively engaging and empowering stakeholders to act constructively and identify viable solutions, facilitate the definition of a collective vision and eventually trigger concerted actions to address this complex issue.
There is a growing need for stronger, more-reliable links between science and society in order to address urgent and complex interconnected challenges towards achieving global sustainability demands. This document encompasses the results of the MARLISCO effort to address this need, while distilling lessons learned and recommendations drawn by the project’s innovative approaches to connect science to society, using the emerging threat of marine litter as a vehicle. The issue of marine litter and its inherent environmental, economic, social, political and cultural dimensions presents a good example to explore and/or illustrate the complexity and the bottlenecks of interactions on the science-society interplay. The MARLISCO experiences offer insights that contribute
to an improved understanding of the science-society nexus, while setting a precedent for effective use of knowledge towards sustainable and responsible individual and collective actions.