Governance

Principle governance bodies
Guiding governance principles

 

Principle governance bodies:

• Governing Board: Guidance on overall strategic orientation and structure of the initiative will be provided by the Governing Board. All partner countries will be represented by the relevant funding organisations for JPI-related climate research. A Management Committee of that board will be responsible for overseeing the operational management of the JPI including its coordination units.

• Working Groups: The operational and programmatic activities of the JPI will be conducted by Working Groups, appointed by the GB and headed by up to two members. Members of the Working Groups will be the representatives of the JPI members and observers. The Working Groups prepare working papers on the operational and programmatic activities of the JPI that are to be adopted by the GB.
  Each Working Group is to propose a spokesperson to the GB to represent the Working Group in the Management Committee. The Working Group spokespersons are recommended to be appointed in consideration of national representation within the Management Committee.
• Central Secretariat: The overall coordination and day-to-day management of the initiative shall be supported by a Central Secretariat. The office will report to the Governing Board via the Management Committee. Specific parts of the JPI could be managed by separate programme nodes.
• Transdisciplinary Advisory Board: An overall Transdisciplinary Advisory Board, consisting of national and international members from academia and from relevant stakeholder groups, will advise the Governing Board on specific issues on request. This overall Advisory Board is an important instrument to involve relevant stakeholder groups.
• Expert Panels: Expert Panels of Working Groups (EP), consisting of scientists as well as representatives of central stakeholder organizations, will be established temporarily on the level of the Working Groups (WG) to be consulted by the WGs regarding scientific orientation and revision of the prevailing sub-process steered by the WG. The chair of the EP in each specific WG can be invited by the Governing Board to report on the proceedings in the WG.

The actual implementation of the priority topics could be organized with a governance structure set up in accordance with principles established by the Governing Board but not be bound by instructions of that board. The governance of the implementation of a priority topic would thus abide by overall guidelines but in its details essentially serve the individual needs of the variable partnerships supporting the implementation of the different priority topics. Each sub-process of the JPI will be led by a Working Group for each of the major implementation strands. Each Working Group, which is the implementation body of the JPI, decides itself on the character of the scientific input necessary for the specific task/implementation step. Further, each Working Group would manage the extent of exchange and input from the respective scientific community.

Guiding governance principles:

• Sustainability: Taking into account the challenges of climate change in the work of the JPI based on active reflection of operations (e.g. “green meetings”) and formulating the endeavour of constant improvement of the operations climate performance.

• Stakeholder orientation: To integrate the knowledge, values and objectives of societal decision-makers in the implementation and operation of the JPI through the active participation of stakeholder group representatives in accordance with the JPI mission.

• Adaptability: To enable the JPI's thematic framework to respond to novel scientific insights and research requirements, current states of societal transformations and potential exigencies due to sudden social-ecological crises.

• Cost efficiency: To limit superfluous duplication of scientific/technical and funding activities.

• Transparency: To base the collaborative efforts encompassed within JPI development and implementation on the notions of openness, mutual learning, mutual dependency and joint creativity; and to foster the free flow and sharing of information, experiences and opinions.

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