Final Report: Producing Usable Science: Testing the Effectiveness of Stakeholder Engagement in Climate Research

This project was designed to test whether the quality of engagement between climate scientists and resource managers and the subsequent usability of the science produce changed when a social scientist was added to a research project to guide engagement activities. The goal of the project was to use social science expertise to strengthen engagement and, through the stakeholder engagement, improve the delivery and use of climate science data. In the two cases we completed, we observed that social science expertise did change the nature of engagements between the climate scientists and stakeholders and the attitude of the scientists toward working directly with stakeholders. In the first case, the most significant...

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Opening learning spaces to create actionable knowledge for conservation

Abstract (from Conservation Science and Practice): The limited application of science to environmental management has been termed the “science‐management knowledge gap.” This gap is widely assumed to be a consequence of inefficient knowledge transfer from science to application. However, this metaphor misrepresents knowledge as a “thing” that can be readily exchanged in complex systems, rather than a “process of relating” that involves negotiation and dialogue among stakeholders. We advocate for development of a more explicit alternative model of knowledge creation founded on Nonaka's Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation, which emphasizes how knowledge is converted into more usable forms through socialization,...

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