In June 2022, the Session 6 Conveners Group (made up of all committee conveners) agreed a package of proposals to strengthen cross-cutting scrutiny of climate change. In response, we developed a model to support more effective parliamentary scrutiny of climate change (the issue) and net zero (the policy response).
SPICe created a blog hub to illustrate how climate change impacts on policy areas across subject committees, to support scrutiny.
As part of this work, we also created a new post for a Knowledge Exchange Manager: Climate Change Scrutiny. This role enhanced academic engagement with, and impact on, the Scottish Parliament in the area of climate change/net zero scrutiny. Through this resource, we piloted new activities in the area of climate-change knowledge exchange to extend and diversify our use of evidence and experts and form new collaborations with academics and other partners in Scotland, across the UK and internationally.
The post is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council up to March 2028. It is a collaboration between the Scottish Parliament, University of Edinburgh as host institution, and the universities of Glasgow, Strathclyde and Stirling, who along with Edinburgh hold an ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Since the start of Session 7 (May 2026) the focus of the role has broadened to support the Parliament strengthen academic engagement on a wider range of scrutiny areas.
Stay tuned for more information on how you can get involved, or if you have ideas, do get in touch to share them via [email protected].