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
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