How to become an
influential scientist?
Bridging the
Science-Policy-Practice Interface
Juergen Weichselgartner
GKSS Research Center
Institute for Coastal Research
2. EAS Youth Forum
«Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Introduction
What are difficulties in GEC research?
What are barriers at the SPPI?
How to become an influential scientists?
Photo: J. Weichselgartner
What are we doing?
Our approach
to understanding
the Earth System
has been to cut
the “big picture”
into small pieces.
Some of the
pieces lack detail,
others are missing
entirely – but …
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What has to be done?
… “putting together
the puzzle” is a rigorous
scientific enterprise
and does not
happen automatically!
Someone needs
to put together
the puzzle!
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What is needed?
… requires a systemic / integrative approach …
- to understand natural hazard processes and their
interdependencies
… an action-oriented /
applied approach …
- to develop and implement
mitigation strategies
in a sustainable way
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are difficulties?
• Process characteristics (multidimensional, socially divergent,
dynamic, interactive, scale-dependent)
• Interactions across scales (local − global)
Process-level: understanding
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Example: deforestation Amazon
Snyder et al. (2004): Climate Dynamics (23): 279-302
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are difficulties?
• Process characteristics (multidimensional, socially divergent,
dynamic, interactive, scale-dependent)
• Interactions across scales (local − global)
• Language-conceptual dissonance (among scientific disciplines)
• Non-cumulative research results
System-level: integration
Process-level: understanding
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Example: climate research
1822: Fourier identified the “greenhouse effect”
1839: Schönbein isolated ozone (O3) by sparking air
1872: Smith described acidic rain from air pollutants
1896: Arrhenius calculated the sensitivity of Earth’s surface
temperature to changes in CO2;
forecast slow global warming
1930: Chapman discovered the physical
and chemical processes that lead
to the formation of an ozone layer
1960: Keeling reveals the secular increase
of CO2 from direct measurement
2007: U.S. Supreme Court recognized
CO2 as a pollutant
Example: heterogeneous knowledge
16. December, 1986
1969: Baffling problem (Chapman’s theory led to overestimation
of the
amount of O3; Crutzen proposed catalytic reduction via NO)
1970: Crutzen & Johnston describe the NOx-induced O3-destruction cycle
1985: Farman et al. discover the ozone hole
1995: Nobel Prize in chemistry to Crutzen, Molina & Rowland
Source: P. Crutzen
Stockholm, 18 September, 2007
What are difficulties?
• Process characteristics (multidimensional, socially divergent,
dynamic, interactive, scale-dependent)
• Interactions across scales (local − global)
• Language-conceptual dissonance (among scientific disciplines)
• Non-cumulative research results
• Funding mechanisms
Policy/Practice-level: application
(time frames, scope)
• Interface barriers
System-level: integration
(science, policy, practice)
Process-level: understanding
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Example: changing risk perception
Source: R. MacDonald
Vancouver, 30 May, 2007
Example: political will
“We must explore every reasonable
prospect for meeting our energy needs
when our current domestic reserves of
oil and natural gas begin to dwindle in
the next decade.
I urgently ask Congress and the new
administration to move quickly on
these issues. This Nation has the
resources and the capability to achieve
our energy goals if its Government has
the will to proceed, and I think we
do.”
State of the Union Address
Gerald R. Ford, 1975
(38. President of the USA, 1974-77)
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Results from a case study analysis
- How appropriate is the knowledge base to support
efforts for vulnerability reduction?
(analysis of 20 assessments
> e.g., scope, recognition, integration)
- What are barriers in the SPPI?
(questionnaire survey / telephone interviews
with 40 producers and 52 potential users
> e.g., information sources, research process,
audience, influence, usefulness, conflicts)
- Where are linkages between assessment determinants and impact
(correlations > e.g., authorship, gender, hazard
type, recognition, location)
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are used information sources?
Regularly used information sources
Internal
Sources
65%
58%
71%
43%
35%
93%
Scientific
Sources
Media
Personal
communication
Users
38%
Governmental
Sources
Non-governmental Sources
Producers
50%
28%
44%
33%
48%
(All numbers in %, rounded)
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are critical information sources?
Information sources and are most
influential and critical to your work?
19%
48%
42%
Data (statistics,
census, maps)
45%
39%
Scientific
literature
Models
Media,
government releases
Users
50%
Survey, fieldwork,
personal communication
Non-scientific
literature
Producers
13%
27%
10%
19%
< 1%
50%
(All numbers in %, rounded)
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are producer-specific findings?
• assessments are seldom co-produced with users and
hardly address multiple scales
• producers are well-aware of the limiting factors that prevent
impact and fairly acquainted with
the needs of decision makers
• lower recognition when only author(s)
set up research agenda
• increasingly use a variety of information sources and consider scientific literature/data to be critical
• disseminate through papers/reports
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are user-specific findings?
• male users use internal/scientific sources – female use
governmental sources/personal communication/media
• perceive assessments as highly credible and legitimate
• well-recognized and highly integrated
assessments address the users’
needs better than other assessments
• are more aware of well-recognized
assessments
• 25%: no influence on actions
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are shortcomings?
Lack of …
• addressing multiple scales
• combining physical and social aspects
• co-producing knowledge
Problem
Research
Knowledge
• recognizing institutional structures
• communicating science
Translation
Transfer
Adoption
(small-scale)
Diffusion
(large-scale)
Rejection
• appreciating context
• identifying needed knowledge
• addressing users’ needs
• ignoring management options
• designing knowledge
• ignoring cultural context
• ignoring large-scale dynamics
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
What are main barriers?
Functional: objectives, needs, scopes, priorities, fragmentation
• many practical issues are not relevant/not known to scientists
• multi-faceted questions that don't translate well to practitioners
Structural: institut. settings, standards, time frame, reward system
• practitioners lack accurate input data for proposed methods
• “publish or perish” vs. clear recommendations
Social: cultural values, communication,
Photo: Weichselgartner
understanding, mistrust
• “big picture” vs. “broad-brush”
• propose solutions that are often
unworkable in practice
• science language is too complex
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
How to overcome the barriers?
• Create dense social networks that provide bi-directional links
across scales and mechanisms for early problem identification
in order to better match the needs of various users
• Involve a variety of actors in setting up the research agenda
and establish a shared problem perception within the group
• Combine understanding from multiple sources in order to
discover which can be adapted to diverse local contexts
• Avoid to the use of generalizing, decontextualizing
and reductionist approaches and strengthen integration of
ecological and social approaches and tools
• Engage end-users early in defining data needs to create
a research process more likely to produce salient knowledge
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Concluding remarks
In order to become an influential scientists you should …
• Include multiple types of expertise to increase credibility
• Facilitate social memory and learning
by providing a reservoir of
experience from which solutions to
new problems can be drawn,
as well as an open window for
new practices which may be needed
under changed contexts
• Engage in collaborative production
of knowledge to build a
“knowledge-action system”!
Photo: Weichselgartner
2. EAS Youth Forum «Partnerships at Work: Local Implementation and Good Practices»
24 November 2009, Manila/Philippines
Contact
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Dr. Juergen Weichselgartner
Senior Science Coordinator
IHDP/IGBP Core Project LOICZ
Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS Research Center
Max-Planck-Strasse 1, D-21502 Geesthacht, Germany
Phone: +49 - 4152 - 871542
E-Mail: [email protected]