Good day. Thank you for the opportunity to present our paper from a distance. We regret that we could not be in Amsterdam today and benefit from the conversations and activities that an in-person meeting provides. Twenty years ago, I participated in the 2003 conference in Amsterdam, the first of several in this series that I have attended.

Thus, it's with particular regret that I'm not able to join you this week. Patricia Manuel and I are faculty members at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In part because Halifax is a coastal city, this university is a center for teaching and research on oceans and marine subjects from different disciplinary perspectives.

I'm a faculty member in information science in the Faculty of Management, and I head the Interdisciplinary Environmental Information Use and Influence Research Group. Hello, and I also thank you for the opportunity to participate in your conference. I'm a retired professor of planning with post-retirement appointments in the School

of Planning and the Marine Affairs Program, and with Bertram, co-lead a research group focused on questions about marine spatial planning. In our presentation today, we will draw on our research and professional experience. Preparing this presentation has allowed us to reflect on a genre of information that's used extensively in public policy development, implementation,

and assessment. Gray literature of a wide variety of types figures prominently in decision-making processes. We aim to show that this literature fulfills several roles in those multifaceted processes, where many actors are involved, from citizens to politicians. The far-reaching

effects of climate change are among the leading global concerns today. This year, for example, record temperatures, devastating storms, floods, droughts, and heat waves have occurred in many locations. The resulting costs of these weather extremes, which are becoming more frequent, are

massive. In 2022, for example, 18 separate disastrous events in the United States caused damages totaling 165 billion American dollars. The World Meteorological Organization estimated that between 1970 and 2021, economic losses due to extreme weather, climate, and water-related

events totaled 4.3 American trillion dollars globally. Coupled with over 2 million human deaths in this period due to these extreme events and escalating major distresses on wider biodiversity, the implications of climate change for the health of the planet are without question

serious. The literature on climate and climate change subjects has been growing rapidly since the early decades of the 20th century, with the discovery that rising global temperatures were primarily caused by carbon dioxide emissions. It's difficult to estimate the number of publications related to these subjects. One rough measure of the extent is a simple Google search

of the term climate change, which resulted in over 1.2 billion hits as of the first week of November of this year, 2023. Every conceivable aspect of climate change is found in these hits, and a large portion of this substantial output is grey literature. To gain an appreciation

of this vast body of literature, understanding the context in which the information is produced and used is essential. In an earlier iteration of this conference, we demonstrated the importance of grey literature in public policy and decision-making processes. These processes are

notoriously complex, as Sir Peter Gluckman, then Chief Science Advisor to the New Zealand Prime Minister, illustrated in this diagram which he presented at a conference of the International Network for Government Science Advice in Brussels in 2016. We will not unpack the details of this

diagram here, but presented to highlight the messiness of decision processes. The public arena of policy decision-making at all levels of government is populated with many actors and decisions and decision actions. It's important to recognize that this is the environment in

which grey literature functions. Dr. Gluckman extended the messiness of the diagram that I showed in the previous slide by showing that evidence can be and is introduced at multiple points in decision processes. The context surrounding each access point often dictates

the type and format of information or the evidence that's used. For the evidence or the information to be effective, it must be relevant and it must be presented in usable form at each location. The format of the information may evolve as it moves along the various pathways in the decision processes. In a policy scenario, for example, the information

may enter as a briefing note and conclude as a policy document. As this audience well knows, the types of grey literature are varied and extensive. This variety is largely related to how information is used and in decision processes as noted in the previous slides.

Some types are widely used in organizational context, often specifically designed and formatted to meet the contextual requirements. While some documents are very common at both operational and political branches of government bodies, they may or may not be publicly accessible by default. This list also illustrates the variety of producers

of grey literature, individual authors, governmental and non-governmental organizations, private companies, etc. The diversity of types of grey literature and the producers points to numerous roles that this literature fulfills. As we will demonstrate in this slide and several

that follow, grey literature performs a suite of roles in decision processes. We have selected climate change examples to illustrate each role. From a research perspective, initial reports of research may be published as grey literature. For example, technical reports

have been produced by governments and other organizations in very large numbers in various formats for decades. This type of grey literature has received extensive attention from grey experts, librarians and authors alike. Often the resources required to produce technical reports

can be substantial. Furthermore, technical reports are often the first documentation of research results and usually contain more details than included in journal articles arising from the research. Research and professional literature is extensive and growing rapidly. An estimated

3 million scientific papers are published each year and between 2015 and 2019, UNESCO reported that the number of scientific publications increased by 21%. This large volume of literature is scattered among many publications,

which has prompted production of syntheses that vary in scope and comprehensiveness. Governments and intergovernmental agencies produce syntheses and probably the best known periodic reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The latter compilations are

so large that the IPCC produces summaries for policymakers to support mobilizing research into policy. The prominence of grey literature is evident in the significant role of informing policymakers and the public. Briefing notes are widely deployed to serve in this capacity.

Such documents are frequently used to convey information to politicians and decision-makers in many if not most governmental organizations. While this type of document is common, due to confidentiality and the typically short lifespan of the documents, they may not be readily accessible. Briefing notes are used both within and outside governments, primarily because the

fits the important role of informing and readability in an accessible manner. Grey literature fills a fourth role by serving as tools for advocacy. Non-governmental

organizations such as WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Nature Conservancy and many others pursue advocacy functions as a matter of their mandates. They carry out their mandates by directing information specifically to governments and to wider publics.

Frequently, they maximize the tools in this work. Grey literature in the form of multifunctional websites and active social media platforms, for example, are commonly used. Once policies have been approved, implementation follows and grey literature fills yet another role, namely the implementation of policies in diverse sectors. Planning documents are a prime

example of this role. Plans are designed for local to international levels. The policy itself is settled in a planning document and further grey literature identifies

the steps and actions to implement the plan. The examples of planning documents included in this slide range from urban municipal action plan for the City of Halifax in Nova Scotia to a country level marine spatial plan for Scotland. Grey literature also serves to promote

change in professional and individual practice. To mitigate and combat the increasing risks by climate change, both professional organizations and individuals must examine their practices and adopt changes to achieve positive outcomes. Many governmental and non-governmental organizations deploy grey literature to deliver messages about the urgency of the issues and to

encourage changes in individual habits and practices. Complementing initiatives to promote change in professional and individual practices, non-governmental organizations have been set up

to explicitly fill educational roles. Invariably, these organizations develop and distribute educational materials in the form of grey literature. A full toolkit of educational strategies may be used in designing such grey literature in order to be effective at a variety of educational levels from grade school to adults. The next role for grey literature may

not be as obvious as the preceding examples. Some organizations either intentionally or unintentionally take on the responsibility of information brokers among groups, for example between stakeholders and governments. They may also serve as information brokers between levels

of government when particular government departments or agencies are not on speaking terms with their counterparts in other levels of government. Grey literature generated by the brokering organizations can serve as boundary objects between levels of government since they

are seen as neutral and not directly tainted by negative characteristics of government units. In addition, non-governmental organizations may be trusted and carry greater credibility than governmental bodies in the eyes of some stakeholders and in such situations the NGOs can use grey literature in their brokering role. The ninth role that we have identified in our

assessment of climate change grey literature has become increasingly important recently as digital communication technologies have evolved and become widely used. Misinformation is a growing concern in dealing with the implications of climate change and more and more efforts are

being taken to mitigate this problem. Many governmental and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations have focused their attention on this issue and are producing reports and other grey literature designed to mitigate the effects of misinformation.

Our survey of grey literature related to climate change has demonstrated a suite of roles. The wide range which is available to inform and support policy and decision-making processes. There is this wide range. This grey literature is produced for different purposes,

in different formats and for different audiences. In addition, many actors both individuals and organizations are involved in producing grey literature. The roles that grey literature fulfills are typically connected to specific stages or actions in the many interconnected information pathways in policy and decision-making processes that we outlined earlier in this

presentation. Because of the different roles, grey literature products can consist of a diversity of components and may fulfill different roles simultaneously. For example, a multi-part website can serve to inform, it can also serve to advocate and it can also serve to educate.

Finally, and maybe this is a really important point, due to the ubiquity and accessibility many people, probably all people encounter grey literature in their daily lives. Consequently, given its roles in informing and educating, this genre may have greater societal

influence than other types of information. We want to thank you for viewing this video and we definitely will welcome your comments and questions and we can be reached via our email addresses which were noted on the opening slide.