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Researching socio-ecological justice issues in earth system governance can be operationalized through an Access (securing minimum needs) and Allocation (allocating the remaining resources, responsibilities and risks) framework. This paper synthesizes the review articles in this special issue. It concludes that (a) although international trade, investment and aid aim to enhance access, efficiently allocate resources and reduce risk, in practice the volume of trade and investment, the geographical distance between production and consumption, the pursuit of competitiveness and use of market instruments have concentrated wealth at great cost to socio-ecological justice; (b) research on food, water, energy, climate change and biodiversity reveal multiple linkages among the sustainable development goals, underlining the limitations of sectoral and incremental approaches to socio-ecological justice, for example, for smallholders; (c) while access issues are becoming difficult for politicians to ignore, allocation issues are being side-stepped because they draw too much attention to the underlying causes of inequality and poverty, (d) corrective justice is not enough, substantive justice approaches are needed emphasizing a rights-based framework and allocation cannot be exclusively left to market forces and mechanisms when it concerns public and merit goods; and (e) the terms access and allocation, although individually used, are not popular as a paired framework in the socio-ecological justice literature, but remain highly salient and cover the key justice issues for improving earth system governance.

© 2015 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis. Narrowing research and policy, while challenging, is especially important in climate change adaptation work (CCA) due to the high uncertainties involved in planning for climate change. This article aims to seek stakeholders’ opinions regarding how research and policy development can be bridged within the Cambodian water resources and agriculture sectors. The study used institutional ethnography methods with informants from government organizations, local academia, and development partners (DPs). This article identifies a number of challenges, and barriers for narrowing research–policy development gaps, including: limited effectiveness of governmental policies and planning; lack of relevant information required to promote evidence-based planning and policy development; and communication barriers. Evidence-based planning is valued by government officials most when there is actual and effective implementation of policies and plans. In practice, this often implies that governmental policies and plans need be scoped and scaled down to meet the available budget, and thus be achievable. In the long term, it also means building the capacity for policy-relevant research on climate change adaptation within Cambodia. Engaging policy stakeholders in research process for co-producing adaptation knowledge, and introducing knowledge intermediaries are suggested by informants as means to narrowing gaps between research and policy development. The presence of the Cambodia's Prime Minister in research–policy dialogues is recommended as important for attracting the attention of high-level policy makers. Policy relevance As a least developed and highly climate-vulnerable country, Cambodia has received climate change funding to implement a number of climate adaptation initiatives. Cambodia is likely to receive more climate change finance in the future. This article aims to assist evidence-based planning, in particular, through policy

Ecosystem services have become a mainstream concept for the expression of values assigned by people to various functions of ecosystems. Even though the introduction of the concept has initiated a vast amount of research, progress in using this knowledge for sustainable resource use remains insufficient. We see a need to broaden the scope of research to answer three key questions that we believe will improve incorporation of ecosystem service research into decision-making for the sustainable use of natural resources to improve human well-being: (i) how are ecosystem services co-produced by social–ecological systems, (ii) who benefits from the provision of ecosystem services, and (iii) what are the best practices for the governance of ecosystem services? Here, we present these key questions, the rationale behind them, and their related scientific challenges in a globally coordinated research programme aimed towards improving sustainable ecosystem management. These questions will frame the activities of ecoSERVICES, formerly a DIVERSITAS project and now a project of Future Earth, in its role as a platform to foster global coordination of multidisciplinary sustainability science through the lens of ecosystem services.