From research to policy recommendations: A scientometric case study of air quality management in the Greater Bay Area, China

Despite the consensus that science can inform policymakers about environmental problems and solutions, the empirical literature on the pathways and dynamics of how science influences environmental policymaking is limited. Particularly understudied is how institutional factors shape scientific contributions to environmental policy - from research support systems to the nature of policy recommendations that emerge. Through scientometric meta-analysis, this study examines the contribution of scientific research to air pollution policy discussions in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China by investigating: the types of institutions funding and conducting research, the relationship between institutional characteristics and likelihood of policy recommendations, and how institutional arrangements shape the types of recommendations made. Governed under the “One Country, Two Systems” framework, the GBA offers an opportunity to examine how institutional factors such as political systems and government involvement in funding and co-authorship shape the science-policy interface. By analyzing a dataset of scientific studies on air pollution in the GBA, we find that English-language articles focused on Hong Kong are less likely to have government co-authors and are more likely to include policy recommendations when compared with the Chinese literature focused on the entire GBA. Scientific papers published in the Chinese literature have more government involvement in terms of both funding and authorship, with these papers tending to be more cautious in their policy recommendations. Although Hong Kong studies are more likely to propose new policies, such studies become less critical of existing policies if they are funded by mainland city governments or overseas national governments.