The sub-programme focuses mainly on the issue on how scientific consensus for international agreements is formed. The theoretical aim is to improve the understanding of the consensual character of scientific practice, how scientists in policy-relevant situations as experts produce agreed knowledge and how they handle uncertainties, ambiguities and controversies. The overall question is therefore to analyse how consensus is reached in scientific policy-relevant practice and what importance consensus among scientists has for building credible environmental abatement strategies.

The present work is focused on three different topics:

· Consensus, uncertainty and credibility. The formation of a commonly accepted body of data, analyses and models, i.e. scientific understanding, means a narrowing of uncertainty and thereby putting pressure on negotiators and political representatives to find political solutions. How do involved researchers and experts balance between uncertainty and consensus in their scientific work and communication?

· In a historical study it is studied how the concept of transboundary air pollution and the concept of critical loads rhetorically connects the domains of facts and values.

· In an other study the policy implications of the concept of recovery from acidification and dynamic modelling is focused upon. As members of the ASTA programme we study how natural scientists consider the policy implications of their work on further developing the concept of critical loads, including dynamic modelling.

Göran Sundqvist
Göteborg University
goran.sundqvist@sts.gu.se