Timothy J. Brown and Crystal A. KoldenDesert Research Institute, Reno, NV

Barbara J. MorehouseUniversity of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Developing Sustainable PartnershipsBetween Fire Scientists and Decision-Makers

• Requires a necessary foundation for the development of an iterative science-society collaboration

– Society must develop a proprietary interest in the science and its applications

• A sustainable partnership

– Stakeholders who have the interest, social and economic capital, and motivation to sustain the enterprise

Partnership

• What are “partnerships”?

• What makes a partnership effective?

Basic Questions

• Synergy measures and example characteristics

– Collaborative thinking (e.g., creativity, practical, innovative)

– Partnership action (e.g., pooling and coordination of resources)

– Relationships with community (e.g., focus on community problems)

– Partner participation (e.g., extent of individual and organization participation)

– Planning (e.g., development of realistic goals)

– Management/administration (e.g., understand and document impacts of actions)

Partnership Synergy Factors

• Synergy measures and example characteristics

– Resources (e.g., money, information, connections)

– Partnership characteristics (e.g., leadership characteristics, flexible management/administration, efficiency)

– Relationships among partners (e.g., trust, confidence, respect)

– External environments (e.g., community characteristics, public policies, organization policies)

Determinants of Partnership Synergy

• Comprises 9 federal, state and local agencies– USFS R5, BLM (CA & NV), FWS, NPS, USFS PSW, CDF, CARB, SJVA

• Mission

– Oversee the implementation and operation of the CEFA Operations and Forecast Facility

– Facilitate the transfer of MM5 and other mesoscale meteorology research done by various agencies to the field for operational applications

– Work closely with the other regional mesoscale meteorology modeling consortiums to improve model accuracy and the implementation of “Bluesky” and other programs

California and Nevada Smoke and Air Committee(CANSAC)

• Board of Directors– 9 members

• Operational and Applications Group

– 7 members

• Technical Advisory Group

– 5 members

CANSAC Structure

• 45 questions/statements

• Ranked 1-5– 1 (strongly disagree); 5 (strongly agree)– 1 (very poor); 5 (very good)

Survey Method

• Partnership structure

• Organizational design

• Availability of resources

• CANSAC management

• Leadership

• Progress

Survey Categories

• A sufficient level of trust exists among CANSAC members

• CANSAC has the flexibility to be innovative in how it approaches its work

• Funding is sufficient

• Management accountability

• Ability to harmonize differences in members’ perspectives

• Level of integration with stakeholders

Sample Statements

• BOD and OAG strongly agreed that their organization’s interests are well integrated into the partnership

• TAG less certain on the level of commitment

• Disagreement between all 3 groups on question of having satisfactory access to the resources it needs

• All 3 groups concerned with flexibility to allocate resources

Results

• All 3 groups concerned with funding stability

• BOD and TAG concerned about motivating members

• BOD concerned about harmonizing member differences

• BOD concerned about external communications and evaluation

• OAG concerned about project evaluation process

Results (cont)

• Survey indicated an overall moderate level of satisfaction in terms of a CANSAC partnership

• BOD and OAG feel strongly that their organization’s interests are well integrated into the partnership

• CANSAC resources and project/product evaluation process needs improvement

Summary

• CANSAC can be identified with a number of observed and theorized aspects of synergistic partnership characteristics and determinants

– Serves as a useful model for scientist and decision-maker sustainable partnerships

• Claiming a partnership is not satisfactory, nor realistic

– It must be evaluated on an on-going basis with synergistic characteristics and determinants as measures

– Various levels of project/product use and value must be assessed (e.g., operations, management)

• It takes time to establish a partnership

– 3 to 5 years of continuous effort is common

Conclusions