Ann Beynon, Clarivate Web of Science
The MECCE Project (Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education Project) has launched the Interactive Data Platform (IDP) at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, currently being held in Sharm el-Sheikh Egypt from November 6 to November 18. As part of the new platform, the MECCE Project partnered with Clarivate to include a research indicator related to climate change research productivity from the Web of Science Core Collection™ a global citation index of 21,000 journals from all academic disciplines.
What is the Interactive Data Platform
The IDP is an online interactive tool meant to help countries view progress in climate communication and education (CCE) and establish related benchmarks and target setting. The newly established data platform includes CCE indicators related to primary and secondary education, higher education, training, public awareness, public access to information and public participation.
The higher education facet makes use of a research-output indicator from the Web of Science to reflect the extent to which scholars are producing research on climate change and climate action. The indicator covers nearly all countries and is based on counts of climate-related keywords in journal article titles, which are then normalized by the number of graduate students enrolled in each of the country’s higher education sector. ISI used a similar methodology for identifying climate change research in a recent report on climate change collaboration. Countries are assigned a level in the indicator from ‘one’ to ‘five’ based on number of climate articles produced in a three-year period, with ’five’ reflecting the highest level of activity. (The full methodology can be found on the MECCE Project website.)
In this image: the MECCE Project’s Interactive Data Platform Indicators Home Page
In this image: methodological information on the MECCE Project’s Interactive Data Platform
Improving our Understanding of Regional Progress in Climate Communication and Education
In this image: the higher education extent of climate change focus in research publications Indicator on the MECCE Project’s Interactive Data Platform
Findings from the new indicator show that regions most affected by climate change, such as Latin America, the Caribbean and Oceania, indicate a greater focus on climate change research, when normalized for size. Users can also explore an interactive map showing each country’s level of focus on climate change research.
As world leaders meet at COP27 to discuss progress and future actions to combat global climate change, indicators such as these can help them to understand the current state of climate change communication and education across the globe and how the CCE landscape has changed over time.
“The Web of Science provides accurate data with global coverage, providing unique insight on how the higher education sector is contributing to a deeper and more robust understanding of climate change and its consequences. Including information from this source enhances our real-world, evidence-informed data platform and hopefully will inform the deliberations and decisions of policy makers and country negotiators on climate issues.”
“Research publishing is a key indication of higher education activity on climate change and this indicator, using data from Web of Science, provides some of the first evidence of that activity across a range of countries. In the first phase of our IDP, these data help to address the existing gaps in our ability to monitor, evaluate and report on the current extent of climate communication and education.”
About the Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) Project
An ambitious international research partnership of over 100 leading scholars, NGOs and agencies, this Project is focused on increasing our understanding of climate communication and education (CCE) in policy and practice. The Project goal is to advance global climate literacy and action through improving the quality and quantity of climate change education, training, and public awareness. For more info, visit https://mecce.ca/.
As world leaders meet at COP27 to discuss progress and future actions to combat global climate change, indicators such as these can help them to understand the current state of climate change communication and education across the globe and how the CCE landscape has changed over time.
This article is republished from Clarivate.com under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
