Effective governance for climate resilience requires a knowledge translation (KT) system with capacities to inform and prepare key decision makers across government, business and civil society. This project will critically examine the actual and potential role of universities as ‘knowledge brokers’ in the production, use and translation of knowledge among different actors currently involved in climate resilience.
Research from the health sector indicates a lack of clear evidence about the effectiveness of knowledge brokering by academic institutions, and of the factors that influence their performance in KT. Building on the Least Developed Countries Universities Consortium on Climate Change (LUCCC) initiated by Bangladesh’s International Centre on Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and Uganda’s Makerere University, the study will use mixed methods combining a sociometric survey, qualitative interviews and participatory workshops with researchers and research users to investigate the range and breadth of brokering activities, modes of operation and capacity gaps in relation to building and maintaining sustainable networks.
Going beyond the existing South-South focus of the Consortium to include the Centre for Natural Resources and Development (CNRD) network, the project will focus on KT roles in three universities in three countries: Independent University Bangladesh (IUB), Makerere and Germany’s TH Köln. The study will gather systematic evidence regarding the nature of knowledge brokering in each setting and provide strategies for enhancing capacities.
Professor David Lewis
David Lewis is professor of social policy and development at LSE. His main research interests include international development policy, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society, and rural development. He has also worked on representations of development within works of fiction and film. An anthropologist by training, he has undertaken regular fieldwork in Bangladesh since the 1980s and has longstanding interests in South Asia.
Davis is the Principal Investigator for the project.
Dr Saleemul Huq
Saleemul Huq is the Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and Senior Fellow at the IIED in London and past Director of the Climate Change Programme at the institute. He has worked extensively in the inter-linkages between climate change (both mitigation as well as adaptation) and sustainable development, from the perspective of the developing countries, with special emphasis on least developed countries (LDCs).
Saleemul is a Co-Investigator for the project and will lead the Bangladesh case study.
Professor Lars Ribbe
Lars Ribbe is Professor of Integrated Land and Water Resources Management and Executive Director of the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), TH Köln (University of Applied Sciences). Holding a PhD in the field of Hydro-informatics (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena) his current work in research and teaching is river basin assessment, modelling and management. At ITT he is the coordinator of the MSc Integrated Water Resources Management – which is actively linked to similar master programs around the globe.
Lars is a Co-Investigator for the knowledge brokers project and will lead the German case study.
Dr Revocatus Twinomuhangi
Revocatus Twinomuhangi holds a PhD in Geography from Makerere University. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Geo-informatics and Climatic Sciences, Makerere University. He is also the Coordinator of the Makerere University Centre for Climate Change Research and Innovations (MUCCRI). Revocatus has a 20 years’ experience in training, research, capacity building in the fields of human geography, environment management and climate change.
Revocatus will serve as a Co-Investigator and lead the case study in Uganda.
Dr Mahsa Motlagh
Mahsa Motlagh, is a research associate, project coordinator and lecturer in water resources governance and diplomacy in transboundary waters management and capacity development at the Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), Cologne University of Applied Sciences. With a background in natural resource policies and agricultural economics, she has specialized in the use of diplomacy as a trans-disciplinary tool to resolve shared water resources and environmental disputes, and multi-stakeholder cooperation.
Mahsa will work as a researcher for the project and will facilitate the case study at ITT Cologne in Germany.
Shababa Haque
Shababa Haque is a research officer at ICCCAD. Shababa graduated from the University of Manchester with an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London. Shababa has since then worked in the field of climate change; focusing on climate mitigation and renewable energy, SDGs in relation to climate change and transformative adaptation in Bangladesh.
Shababa will work as a researcher on the Bangladesh case study.
Dr M. Feisal Rahman
Feisal Rahman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and serves as ICCCAD’s research coordinator. Feisal’s current work focuses on adaptation technology, climate finance and political economy of climate change adaptation. An engineer by training, Feisal obtained his PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Feisal is the manager of the knowledge brokers project.