Information document: A preliminary review of the motivations for participating in IPBES assessments (IPBES/1/INF/15)

This paper aims to inform discussions concerning the participation of experts in potential IPBES assessments, using interview responses to illustrate the positive and negative incentives to participate in assessments.

The ideas of positive incentives – a benefit of participating in IPBES assessments – and negative incentives – the costs of participation – are used to frame the discussion in this paper. The likelihood of any expert participating in IPBES assessments is likely to depend on the balance they, or their employer, perceives between these positive and negative incentives. In order to attract the best qualified experts to contribute the right incentives need to be offered and, at the same time, the extent of disincentives must be as small as possible, so that the balance is positive for these experts.

The discussions and recommendations in this paper are taken from members of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), a network of organisations all working in fields related to IPBES. Hence, the conclusions of this paper should be representative of many of the experts that could make useful contributions to IPBES assessments.