COIN

Aim:

This workshop brings together the Politecnico of Milan (POLIMI) and the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) of Lugano, partners of KNOWMAK project funded by Horizon 2020,with scientists of the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) with a view to discuss together how to further improve the assessment of knowledge production in Europe and to ensure that it is developed using the highest standards in composite indicator methodology.

Description:

The KNOWMAK project has developed a fine-grained analysis of knowledge production in Europe by combining three main data sources, i.e. participation of EU-FP projects, scientific publications and patents. These sources have been harmonised through three common dimensions, i.e. space (regions/countries), topics (based on a newly-developed ontology) and actors (public and private). In a further step, additional indicators are being introduced on user attention (based on tweets of scientific publications) and social innovation projects.

Societal impact:

The creation of new knowledge is the essential basis for successfully generating innovation, and thus, described as a major determinant of the overall socio-economic development of regions or countries . The project is now discussing the development of composite indicators at regional level, summarising about 20 indicators on knowledge production. Given the fine-grained data available and the combination of different data sources, such indicators would be a central contribution to regional analysis and regional policy.

Aim:

This workshop brings together a PhD researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada with scientists of the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) with a view to discuss together how to further improve a composite indicator to evaluate the environmental effectiveness of forest management plans in Brazil and to ensure that it is developed using the highest standards in composite indicator methodology.

Description:

The sustainability of selective logging operations in the tropics is a long standing debate in the scientific community. In many tropical countries, national governments have produced legal frameworks to encourage the implementation of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) as an approach to avoid deforestation and forest degradation. Regardless of being widely promoted, there are few data about the SFM implementation on the ground. This research has the objective of assessing the timber production efficiency of SFM activities in the Brazilian Amazon. To reach this objective a previous disturbance intensity map will be used to derive a spatial composite indicator aimed to evaluate the harvest process in selected forest management units located in the southern region of the State of Amazonas, Brazil. 

Societal impact:

The monitoring and evaluation of areas of selective logging is crucial, not just in Brazil but also for other tropical countries. Research on sustainability indices is also important in the evaluation and implementation of environmental policies beyond the forest sector. The proposed spatial composite indicator aims to contribute for the future evaluation of forest policies in the State of Amazonas (Brazil).