The need for an impact-based impact-factor for climate science translators

Abstract:

The impact of extreme climate events will continue to disproportionately affect low-income countries, increasing the need for professionals, who are able to bridge the gap between scientific findings and actionable knowledge as well as subjective risk perception and data-informed decision-making. However, with the exception a small sample of the world’s largest aid organizations, such as the Red Cross Red Crescent, which has its own climate center (Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre) to exploit state-of-the-art climate data, most end users making decisions on behalf of humanitarian or development organizations are struggling to understand the opportunities presented by climate data and exploit the added-value of climate information. A new generation of “climate science translators” (CSTs) is currently evolving, both independently and backed by humanitarian agencies. While these people have the potential to break up the omnipresent silo mentality affecting both science and applications, there are neither clear job profiles, nor established criteria for success. Based on an analysis of job offers published on one of the largest humanitarian and development aid job portals we show that the demand for CSTs has been increasing since 2011. Subsequently, we characterize the core skills of the next-generation of CSTs to start defining clear career profiles, aiming to move towards the goal of establishing a space for not only current CSTs to thrive, but also a path for future translators to follow.