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During London Climate Action Week 2025, Dr Eldrid Herrington, Head of Academic Engagement at CCE, moderated a discussion on how Rapid Evidence Synthesis can improve environmental decision-making. This report summarises the webinar’s key takeaways – focussing on how this powerful tool can inform policies to address the climate and nature crises.
The speakers explored the potential of rapid evidence synthesis (RES), which would allow faster, more fluid delivery of science-based solutions to policymakers and other stakeholders working on climate mitigation and adaptation.
Key questions were:
What improvements are needed in the existing science-policy interface, on climate, pollution and biodiversity?
Can RES effectively support evidence-based policy action on the environment? If so, what are the prerequisites for its successful deployment?
During London Climate Action Week 2025, Dr Eldrid Herrington, Head of Academic Engagement at CCE, moderated a discussion on how Rapid Evidence Synthesis can improve environmental decision-making. This report summarises the webinar’s key takeaways – focussing on how this powerful tool can inform policies to address the climate and nature crises.
The speakers explored the potential of rapid evidence synthesis (RES), which would allow faster, more fluid delivery of science-based solutions to policymakers and other stakeholders working on climate mitigation and adaptation.
It’s crucial that when evidence is delivered to a policymaker or other stakeholder, it’s delivered with an understanding of that specific stakeholder, their needs, timelines and context, and the wider policy environment. This keeps the evidence relevant and actionable.
‘Horizon scanning’ can be helpful here: monitoring the policy landscape to understand where and how evidence can be useful, to ensure that the right researchers are in the right spaces, answering the right questions.
Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE, said:
“RES can only work if it’s part of a longer process of dialogue between scientists and others who are producing and gathering that evidence, and the people who might be utilising it. And when defining research remits, it’s important to have a good understanding, at an early stage of the production of evidence, what the policy questions might be.”
Dr Daniela Jacob discussed the importance of understanding the needs of different stakeholders:
“Political advice is based on knowledge, while lobbying is based on interest — and that’s an important distinction to keep in mind. Of course, there are challenges. The relationship between science and policy is often complex and tense. For scientific advice to be effective in policymaking, it must be credible, relevant, and legitimate.”
Dr Jan Minx outlined the problem:
“We have always struggled with the disconnect between the need and the delivery of evidence at the science-policy interface. It’s typical that: a policymaker has a problem. The window of opportunity for making the decision is usually quite small. And then scientists want to go away, do some research, and come back two years later. That doesn’t work.”
RES could solve this, but balancing the rapid delivery of evidence with scientific rigour is a challenge. Measures can be taken to ensure accuracy, even in the short time periods sometimes required by policymakers, using available tools. As Dr Kawooya and Professor Shuckburgh noted, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
There is precedent for success in the Covid-19 pandemic, where RES played a critical role. Still, the use of RES is more challenging in environmental contexts, due to their complexity and scale.
Evidence must be accessible — for example, through rapid response briefs: concise one-pagers that summarise key messages for time-pressed policymakers, designed to support immediate decision-making and encourage deeper engagement when possible.
It’s not always best for researchers to talk directly to policymakers. Researchers should either have a strong understanding of policy language and context, or work with knowledge brokers who do. In these conversations, trust, framing and language matter.
Dr Ismael Kawooya said:“It’s really about access. Access is not just finding where the evidence is and putting it together, but how you then write about it.”
Dina Eparkhina added: “Information is not the same as understanding and understanding is not always actionable knowledge. We all agree on that.”
Rapid evidence synthesis should be living evidence synthesis: evidence should be constantly updated and synthesized to best support evidence-based decision making.
Dr Jan Minx argues that:
“Often, there will be a systematic review or an evidence synthesis piece, then already at the point of publication, things are a little outdated, and basically the products lose value over time. So we push the rock up the hill, then we have to do it again and again. Let’s push the rock up the hill once and keep it there. Keep evidence updated, keep it living, and then it’ll be there when policymakers need it.”
For example, there are often huge volumes of evidence available, but methods are needed for quality control and narrowing the search. AI could rapidly accelerate this process.
But to maintain scientific integrity and ethical standards, human oversight is critical – to avoid misinformation and bias, mitigate environmental concerns about AI use, and integrate inclusivity, equity and justice into the RES process.
More methodological research on RES is needed, on the use of AI and more broadly. Research funding organisations should start by supporting this research.
To be effective, RES must be supported by proactive investment, accessible data and secure digital infrastructure. There are gaps here, which should be addressed.
Dina Eparkhina said:
“To make RES work, we need sovereign and sustained observing systems. We need open and findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data. And we need system integration between observing governance, science funding platforms, modelling and policy needs.”
Conclusion
Speakers agreed that RES is an exciting and valuable tool for evidence-based environmental decision making. Understanding policymakers’ needs, and ensuring that evidence is relevant and accessible, are key, but so are scientific integrity and robust methodological standards.
There is a balance to be struck between delivering evidence quickly and meaningfully, and ensuring that it’s the best available evidence, especially given the complexity at each level of the process. Used cautiously and responsibly, AI will be useful here.
RES is not a silver bullet, but it will help solve long-standing problems at the science-policy interface, in a climate and nature context.
Dina Eparkhina said:
“RES, in a way, is not a method. It’s a mindset. It’s an important driver and an exciting development, but will require long-term, coordinated observations, and trust in data and the systems. And also this inclusive, interdisciplinary approach that we’re exploring here today.”
Next steps
Science Europe and partners will plan another webinar ahead of COP30, to deepen engagement with the questions discussed here. In the meantime, these conversations will continue. We must work together to co-develop RES, to strengthen the bridge from research to policy decisions, and accelerate effective climate action.
Speakers
The expert panel included: Dr Lidia Borrell-Damián, Secretary General of Science Europe; Dina Eparkhina, Senior Policy Officer at EuroGOOS; Professor Dr Daniela Jacob, Director of GERICS and Honorary Professor at LEUPHANA University; Dr Ismael Kawooya, Head of the Center for Rapid Evidence Synthesis (ACRES); Professor Emily Shuckburgh CBE, Director of Cambridge Zero and Dr Jan Minx, Head of Evidence for Climate Solutions Working Group at PIK.
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