Towards Robust European Air Pollution Policies: Constraints and Prospects for a wider dialogue between scientists, experts, decision-makers and citizens. A workshop report

The international regulation of transboundary air pollution in Europe is often considered a success story. The success is usually explained by a close relationship between scientists and policy makers. When looking into other international environmental areas (e.g. climate change, marine pollution), there have generally been larger obstacles in the science-policy relationships. Social scientists have for many years studied the international policy development processes for air pollution and pointed to certain factors of importance in for its success. There have however seldom been opportunities for social scientists, policy makers and scientists to discuss together the interrelations between science and policy in the area. In order to further evaluate the science policy interactions and discuss possibilities for social scientists to play a role in the further development of air pollution strategies a workshop was organised in Gothenburg, Sweden 5-7 October 2005. The workshop was organised by the Swedish ASTA programme and the EU Network of Excellence ACCENT in collaboration with the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and the EU CAFE initiative. Approximately 35 participants from 12 countries representing Europe, North America and Japan attended at the workshop. This report compiles the outcome of the workshop. The report is also available at http://asta.ivl.se/