The aim of the Royal Society of South Australia (RSSA) is the promotion and diffusion of scientific knowledge, principally to scientists. Further we aim through our monthly meetings, continued publication of this journal (the Transactions of the RSSA), small research grants scheme and occasional natural history publications. Both theTransactions and grants scheme cater to the scientific community. And although ourmonthlymeetings and library are open to the public, they too catermostly to the scientific community. Our natural history publications have a wide audience amongst the general public and we offer some support to the highly successful Science in the Pub Adelaide (http://scienceinthepubadelaide.org.au/index.html), which attracts large general public audiences. Other groups, such as RIAus (http://riaus.org. au/), have the mission of communicating science to the general public. So although the RSSA leaves the task of broad public science communication engagement to others, do we have a role to play in engaging with government to inform policy? As the peak professional body for natural history scientists in SouthAustralia ourmembers constitute a large, experienced and diverse group of researchers. This expertise is a largely untapped pool that could be used, under the auspices of the society, to provide independent input and scientifically sound advice to affect evidence-based problem solving in our state. Furthermore, by presenting scientific information in a way that is free from political bias, and informed by rigorous peer review, we can serve any group or individual seeking to inform policy and practice by government. Over the past few years we have made tentative steps towards providing such information. Two of the largest issues faced by South Australia are the management of our chief source of fresh water, the River Murray, and the effects of, and adaptation to, future climate change. In response to the Draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan, we provided an evidence-based submission as “senior elected follows of the Royal Society of South Australia”, and published the submission in the Transactions (Souter, Williams, Jennings, & Fitzpatrick, 2013). More recently, in the interests of communicating locally relevant climate science we disseminated information about the Climate Change in South Australia special edition of the Transactions (Vol. 139 part 1) to all 63 of the South Australia’s Commonwealth and State politicians, as well as the Prime Minister of Australia and Federal Minister of the Environment. On 4 December 2015, which coincided with the first week of the Paris COP 21 conference (21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), at a time when we believed interest in climate change should be at its highest, we sent an email with which was attached the special issue editorial (Williams & Souter, 2015) and climate change symposium synthesis report (Souter & Williams, 2015).

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科学团体在向决策者传达信息方面应该扮演什么角色？

南澳大利亚皇家学会 (RSSA) 的目标是促进和传播科学知识，主要是向科学家传播。此外，我们的目标是通过我们的月度会议、本期刊的持续出版（RSSA 汇刊）、小额研究资助计划和偶尔的自然历史出版物。交易和赠款计划都迎合了科学界。尽管我们的月度会议和图书馆对公众开放，但它们也主要迎合科学界。我们的自然历史出版物在广大公众中拥有广泛的受众，我们为阿德莱德酒吧 (http://scienceinthepubadelaide.org.au/index.html) 非常成功的科学提供了一些支持，该酒吧吸引了大量的普通公众。其他团体，例如 RIAus (http://riaus.org.au/)，以向公众传播科学为使命。因此，尽管 RSSA 将广泛的公共科学传播参与的任务留给了其他人，但我们是否可以在与政府接触以告知政策方面发挥作用？作为南澳大利亚自然历史科学家的顶级专业团体，我们的成员构成了一个庞大、经验丰富且多样化的研究人员群体。这种专业知识在很大程度上是一个尚未开发的资源库，在社会的支持下，可以用来提供独立的投入和科学合理的建议，以影响我们州以证据为基础的问题解决方案。此外，通过以没有政治偏见的方式呈现科学信息，并通过严格的同行评审，我们可以为寻求政府政策和实践提供信息的任何团体或个人提供服务。在过去的几年里，我们已经为提供此类信息采取了试探性的步骤。南澳大利亚面临的两个最大问题是我们主要淡水来源默里河的管理，以及对未来气候变化的影响和适应。回应穆雷 - 达令盆地计划草案，我们为“南澳大利亚皇家学会的高级选举后追随”提供了基于证据的提交，并在交易中发表了意见（Souter，Williams，Jennings，＆Fitzpatrick，2013年）。最近，为了传播与当地相关的气候科学，我们向南澳大利亚州的所有 63 位联邦和州政治家传播了有关南澳大利亚气候变化特别版交易（第 139 部分第 1 部分）的信息，以及澳大利亚总理和联邦环境部长。2015 年 12 月 4 日，恰逢巴黎 COP 21 会议（联合国气候变化框架公约缔约方第 21 次会议）的第一周，当时我们认为对气候变化的兴趣应达到最高水平，我们发送了一封电子邮件，其中附有特刊社论（Williams & Souter，2015）和气候变化研讨会综合报告（Souter & Williams，2015）。