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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
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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
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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
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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
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1. Center-specific
• use the synthesis method
• novel teams
• infrequent, short meetings
Challenges
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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
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sufficient water quantity to meet daily needs
whose needs? families? Industry? foreign
owned? used for exports?
access … geographically, economically, socially
How can we increase water security in growing urban areas?
multiple ways to view problem
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sufficient water quantity to meet daily needs
whose needs? families? Industry? foreign
owned? used for exports?
access … geographically, economically, socially
How can we increase water security in growing urban areas?
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
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Challenges
3. Interdisciplinarity – unusually high
Academic
73%
Government10%
Industry2%
Non-profit/NGO…
No response
3%
cross-sector
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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…
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Novel teams working in short burst
Extremely Interdisciplinary
Complexity and scope of S-E
problems
A unique intersection of challenges
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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”
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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
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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
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Team LeadsWorkshop
Project Planning
Team Work
Cyber-Support
Team Meetings Design
Team Meeting
FacilitationTeam ProjectCollaborative
Project Development
Meeting Design • Strategies, agendas, activities
• Balance group vs. individual time
• Post-meeting debriefs
- process, outcomes, momentum
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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
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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
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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
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Team LeadsWorkshop
Project Planning
Team Work
Cyber-Support
Team Meetings Design
Team Meeting
FacilitationTeam ProjectCollaborative
Project Development
EnhancementsCheck-in Meetings
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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”
EnhancementsCheck-in Meetings
Team Work
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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
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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
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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
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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.”
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“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”
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www.SESYNC.org
1 Park Place
Annapolis, MD
Come visit !