During the cause of our work on how to create a network of knowledge, four main challenges have come to the frontpage that need to be addressed in a network constructing. Section 4 of the white paper discusses them:

• Quality assurance;
• Data sharing, standards and data exchange
• Connecting, motivating and acknowledging the knowledge holders and requesters ;
• Communication

Interviews and other activities in the KNEU project have shown, that especially activating knowledge holders (item 3) is a crucial challenges and faces quite some hindering factors, nonetheless, we see the NoK as a major tool to overcome some of them.

The most critical and effective networks of knowledge for biodiversity occur at a small scale and involve the constant flow of information, often informal and verbally transmitted among the people who live there.

The Dutch Water Board is an exceptional example of how a knowledge network can be formulated for good outcomes. In many respects it mirrors that of the Bali water "temple" network and that of Oman's aflaj. These all have sophisticated and well-practiced ways of managing natural resources and the human element of dissent, negotiation, etc.

Then, there is the problem of moving the critical information through the institutional filters of which this network has many. Local projects have been truncated when their "success" is evaluated by "experts" up the line, who have little understanding of the scientific and management issues, or quite often how to resolve them.

Information that is high level, abstracted and generalized is useful for replicable and transferable industrial systems and their supporting policies/laws, but all biology is local and unique. Making sure the most critical data elements flow, unhindered, through the information network is crucial.

Having read the white paper, which I think is well-written, informative and ambitious, a fundamental question came to my mind. The paper says that the Nok should be science-driven. Should it? I don't think so. A key characteristic of a science-policy interface is that it offers a way to improve knowledge uptake by policy and to increase policy-relevance of research. The objective of the proposed Nok (which is implicit in the paper; it would be good to phrase it somewhere explicitly) is to provide policy support or decision support for 'users' (also not explicitly defined who they are). Therefore, I think the Nok should be policy-driven (or better: demand-driven) and science-based. By being science-based the issues around credibility, relevance and legitimacy, as described in the paper, still stand.

", but all biology is local and unique" (Kathryn Papp) - of course, that's correct, but there are (more or less) general rules that apply beyond the local scale: trying and finding these generalities is why all of us do ecology - it is these general statements that we need to forward to practicioners, stakeholders and policy-makers!

I got two major comments to make:

(1) Re. Carsten: "Quality assurance" versus "Data sharing, standards and data exchange"
I think, these two aspects are intimately linked: according to my own experience with open data bases with the option for "lays" and the public to enter data (i.e., "data sharing"), it is essential and -at the same time- extremely difficult to ensure and maintain "data quality". Every single set of data that is transferred from one level of communication (e.g., between scientist, stakeholders, land-owners, policy-makers, ...) to the other has to be checked for "quality", reliability and correctness (just like we do with peer-reviewed publications): otherwise "data-sharing" is of little value...

(2) Re. Ben (and, again, closely linked to the above): "The paper says that the Nok should be science-driven. Should it? I don't think so"
I totally disagree! I understand that scientists need to adapt their language to be understandable by non-scientists and to adopt their vocabulary. They think in cost:benefit ratios, and they don't want to here "it seems as if" or "it could be that"...
However, even if and when we will be able to translate the scientific basis into another language, our reasoning and the line of argument has to science-based! Anything else is bare of being testable and can not be verified or falsified!

Martin, it seems we are of the same opinion. I support that the NoK should be science-based, but not that it should be science-driven. There are other networks and ways in which science drives development of further science, but in the case of the Nok, which explicitly aims to be a science-policy-society interface it is essential that the way the NoK works is driven by the demands from policy and society and provides science-based responses.