Environ. Sci. Policy http://doi.org/vj3 (2014)

The science/policy interface is an inherently contested territory. Efforts to tackle complex social and environmental challenges — of which climate change is an exemplar — raise further challenges to the traditional relationship between scientists as 'truth seekers' and actors as advocates of a political agenda working at this interface.

Manjana Milkoreit from Arizona State University and co-authors investigate this tension in the context of resilience science, which is concerned with the linkages between social and natural systems viewed through a complex systems lens. They argue that resilience science rests on concepts that carry 'value commitments' and that as the application of these concepts from local to global governance advances — as illustrated by the concept of planetary boundaries — it becomes increasingly important that resilience scholars embark on an explicit debate about the nature of their role in policy processes. Such reflective processes may help resilience scientists, and perhaps all those engaged in science policy debate, to navigate the contested middle ground between science and politics.