Ecologists accelerating discovery: Ecological synthesis paves the way to transdisciplinary...

national Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center

Annapolis, MD

Margaret A. Palmer and Jonathan Kramer

ESA Centennial Meeting 2015

A center to support team research

using existing data, theories, knowledge

2 NATIONAL SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL SYNTHESIS CENTER

all environmental problems are also social problems

Mission: use synthetic research to accelerate the solution to

problems at the intersection of people and the environment


The SESYNC process

a set of practices designed to:

1) Enhance effectiveness of interdisciplinary team collaborations

focused on environmental problems

2) Build capacity and new communities of researchers

3) Provide education programs to enhance socio-environmental synthesis

4) Build computational capacity to enhance socio-environmental synthesis

5) Enhance relevance to decisions and behaviors


The SESYNC process

a set of practices designed to:

1) Enhance effectiveness of interdisciplinary team collaborations

focused on environmental problems

2) Build capacity and new communities of researchers

many challenges > practices designed to overcome

developmental evaluation used to rapidly adapt


1. Center-specific

• use the synthesis method

• novel teams

• infrequent, short meetings

Challenges


2. S-E research problems :

poorly defined, value and fact-questioning,

incomplete knowledge, high uncertainty

Challenges

Example:

How can we increase water security in growing urban areas?

Water in cities

McDonald et al. 2014


sufficient water quantity to meet daily needs

whose needs? families? Industry? foreign

owned? used for exports?

access … geographically, economically, socially


multiple ways to view problem


sufficient water quantity to meet daily needs

whose needs? families? Industry? foreign

owned? used for exports?

access … geographically, economically, socially


multiple ways to view problem

Data on water use very sparse and poor quality

in many parts of the globe

high uncertainty in climate projection


Challenges

3. Interdisciplinarity – unusually high

Academic

73%

Government10%

Industry2%

Non-profit/NGO…

No response

3%

cross-sector


Challenges

3. Interdisciplinarity – unusually high

Academic

73%

Government10%

Industry2%

Non-profit/NGO…

No response

3%

cross-sector disciplinary diversity Computer Science…

Policy…

Public Health…

Business2%

Education4%

Life Sciences36%

Social Sciences

28%

Geosciences…


Novel teams working in short burst

Extremely Interdisciplinary

Complexity and scope of S-E

problems

A unique intersection of challenges


Team LeadsWorkshop

Project Planning

Team Work

Cyber-Support

Team Meetings Design

Team Meeting

Facilitation

EnhancementsCheck-in Meetings

Team ProjectProposalCollaborative

Project Development

Research Products

SESYNC practices

all teams

some teams

many challenges > practices designed to overcome

the “SESYNC process”


Collaborative project

development and planning

SESYNC

staff

Review panel as resource

rapid

iteration

Goals: initiate co-development and team mindset

Project Planning

Team ProjectProposal

Collaborative Project Development

Priming webinar: • understand current problem

conceptualization

• match resources to potential

team needs

• prepare them, prepare us

Team ProjectPlan


Team leads workshop

interactive workshop with groups of team leaders

• PIs present – project goals, methods, conceptual approaches

• Share management approaches, discuss anticipated challenges

• Activities around team dynamics

Goals: anticipate process, problems, ways to navigate

Team LeadsWorkshop

build capacity for effective leadership and group process awareness


Team LeadsWorkshop

Project Planning

Team Work

Cyber-Support


Team Meeting

FacilitationTeam ProjectCollaborative

Project Development

Meeting Design • Strategies, agendas, activities

• Balance group vs. individual time

• Post-meeting debriefs

- process, outcomes, momentum


Brazil Reforestation for Ecosystem ServicesExperimental Design: How to restore forest fragments

for biodiversity and water services?

• Block: how to co-develop for policy

relevance how to engage social-scientists

• Facilitator:

Months of work with team leads

Meeting design

Meeting facilitation

Example: Meeting Design – transdisciplinary


Facilitation • facilitator interacts with PIs extensively

prior to team meetings

• facilitator studies & learns

• engages in most appropriate way(s)

Moderating Active elicitation/exercises Interventions

Goal: reveal tacit knowledge

build trust

develop shared conceptual model

Team Meeting Facilitation


Business and Biodiversity Team

How can biodiversity measures be effectively used I

corporate sustainability planning?

• stumbling block halted progress:

conceptual frameworks separatedetailed ecological science not useful to

senior corporate managers

• facilitator able to help team move forward

the key was information flow not

the specifics of that information

Example: Facilitation - elicitation exercises


Team LeadsWorkshop

Project Planning

Team Work

Cyber-Support


Team Meeting

FacilitationTeam ProjectCollaborative

Project Development



Iterative engagement

Teams:

• Assess progress and challenges

• Maintain momentum

SESYNC leaders:

• Adapt engagement practices

• Build community

Goals: reflect, adapt, prepare

“it’s not

evaluative

... really”


Team Work


Journal articles

In press or accepted 95

Submitted/in review 54

Books/Book chapters 13

White papers9

Presentations213

Follow-on awards

submitted

58

Results to date: high team productivity


More proposals, more disciplines over time

0

5

10

15

20

25

2011 2012 2013 2014

Tota

l #

of

PIs

Life Sciences Social SciencesComputer Science & Engineering GeosciencesOther

Education

Policy

Public Health

Business

Pro-active

solicitation

of projects


Business and Biodiversity team

“we’ve had 2,950 downloads in 80 countries across 6

continents including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North

and South America... approximately 75% of websites

making referrals to the report were businesses.”

Results: Building New Communities


Team Results

• out of 55 teams, one ‘dissolved’

• collaboration networks expanded

• majority of teams now using support services

Many stories – assessing scholarly “integration” difficult

“…the challenge was to incorporate qualitative social data into quantitative models.”

“…we struggled with questions like what does it mean to have a social regime shift? Natural scientists had to learn from social scientists. …. We had to deal with scale mismatches between the ecological and social. We were trying to integrate in depth case study analysis with models and large scale meta-analyses. How do you do this? Not a single framework existed among the members.”


“Since almost all of the practices involve recursive interactions

between the staff and team members, to the extent that the SESYNC

process is considered an experiment, we are very much part of that.

In fact, to say that SESYNC practices evolved, is to say that we

changed; how we engaged and what we “knew” both tacitly and

explicitly changed over time”


www.SESYNC.org

1 Park Place

Annapolis, MD

Come visit !

http://www.sesync.org/

Ecologists accelerating discovery: Ecological synthesis paves the way to transdisciplinary...

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