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Ongoing complex global ecological and societal transitions pose challenges of including actors with different knowledge. We focus on approaches to gaining shared understanding and acting on it in the converging fields of environment, health care and environmental health. Starting from similarities between these fields with regard to knowledge and actor inclusion, we rethink ‘knowledge’, ‘brokering’ and ‘science–policy interfaces’. Using conceptual models, we structure and characterize the multi-dimensional and interactive co-production and application of types of knowledge (scientific and other) in governance contexts shaped by institutions, political agency and policies (sectorial and integrative). We investigate cases of knowledge brokering, representing different types from formal to informal, international to national, and research-centered to action-oriented. We find both shared and isolated problems and solutions in the studied sectors and settings regarding knowledge brokering, for instance with respect to precaution, reflecting the dynamics in environmental and health care and their contexts. Methodologically, our analyses show the importance of heuristic and participatory approaches to explicating interpretations and dealing with disagreements about knowledge, values and premises for actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicators are commonly used as tools to identify and highlight socio-economic and ecological trends and to assess progress towards sustainability. Different quality criteria can be considered for indicators. This paper focuses on the timeliness of indicators used in the evaluation of sustainable development strategies. The analysis is based on indicators included in four assessment reports of the sustainable development strategy of the European Union and three assessment reports of the national strategy of Finland. Furthermore, a web-based national level indicator portal is analysed. The results show that the timeliness of indicators has generally not improved during the past decade and that indicators used in strategy evaluations have a time lag of approximately two years. It is suggested that more attention should be given to efforts to improve the timeliness of indicators in order to increase the effectiveness of the evaluations. More generally, it is suggested that greater emphasis should be put on the empirical research on actual use of indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]