Competencies – Page 3 – Integration and Implementation Insights

Ten communication tips for translational scientists

January 3, 2022July 19, 2016

By Sunshine Menezes

As someone who works with scientists, journalists, advocates, regulators, and other types of communication practitioners, I see the need for translational scientists who can navigate productive, start-to-finish collaborations between such groups on a daily basis.

This translation involves the use of new, more integrated approaches toward scientific work to confront wicked environmental problems society faces.

In spite of this need, cross-boundary communication poses a major stumbling block for many researchers. Science communication requires engagement with potential beneficiaries, not just a one-way transfer of information.

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 3: Dispositional attributes

December 31, 2021July 4, 2016

By the Translational Ecology Group

This is the third and final blog post considering competencies to make ecologists more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change (see the right sidebar for links to all four related blog posts on translational ecology). In other words these are the competencies underpinning a new discipline of translational ecology.

The two previous blog posts examined the knowledge and skills required in three major areas:

Socio-ecological systems
Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

This blog post uses the same three areas to examine the dispositional attributes required.

What are dispositional attributes?

Each person’s internal cognitive and moral qualities are collectively known as dispositions.

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 2: Skills

December 31, 2021June 28, 2016

By the Translational Ecology Group

This is the second blog post considering competencies that underpin a new discipline of translational ecology, and which make ecologists more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change (see the right sidebar for links to all four related blog posts on translational ecology). In each blog post we examine three major areas:

Socio-ecological systems
Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

Here we engage with these three areas to examine the skills required for translational ecologists.

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 1: Knowledge

December 31, 2021June 21, 2016

By the Translational Ecology Group

What does it take for ecologists to become more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change? What are the competencies underpinning the new discipline of translational ecology? What needs to be covered in graduate courses on translational ecology?

A group of us, supported by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), have been addressing these questions. As well as defining translational ecology, we have developed a matrix covering relevant knowledge, skills and, what we call, dispositional attributes or personal characteristics. We deal with each of these in four related blog posts, as described in the right sidebar.

We argue that knowledge is required in three major areas:

Socio-ecological systems
Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

Transdisciplinarity: Learning together to teach together

December 30, 2021April 19, 2016

By BinBin Pearce, Carolina Adler and Christian Pohl

Are there innovative methods that enable students to frame and confront the complexity of real-world problems in the context of sustainable development? Which learning approaches help students engage with design thinking to understand a particular system, and also to start thinking about responsible solutions? Which approaches enable students to reflect on their own actions, as well as become aware of the importance of diverse stakeholder perspectives and how these play out in real-world contexts?

Working together for better outcomes: Lessons for funders, researchers, and researcher partners

December 29, 2021March 15, 2016

By Kit Macleod

As a community of interdisciplinary practice we need to share our collective knowledge on how funders, researchers and wider research partners can work together for better outcomes to address pressing societal challenges.

Funding interdisciplinary research: improving practices and processes

Seven key challenges to funding interdisciplinary research include:

No agreed criteria defining ‘excellence’ in interdisciplinary research.
Poor agreement of the benefits and costs of interdisciplinary ways of working.
No agreement on how much or what kind of additional funding support is required for interdisciplinary research.
No consensus on terminology.
No clearly delineated college of peers from which to select appropriate reviewers.
Limited appropriate interdisciplinary peer review processes.
Restrictions within funding organisations concerning budget allocations and support for interdisciplinary research.

A guidance note for research funders then suggests ways forward from the pre-call stage to evaluation of completed research projects.

Do we need to discipline interdisciplinarity?

November 30, 2022March 2, 2016

By Gabriele Bammer

Imagine a team of researchers tackling global health inequalities, with a focus on sanitation. The team comprises epidemiologists and biostatisticians interested both in measuring the extent of the problem and designing intervention trials, engineers investigating a range of sanitation options, anthropologists examining the cultural aspects of sanitation, economists and political scientists documenting the economic benefits and looking for policy levers to assist in making change happen.

The team is working at national policy levels and with a range of target communities seeking to engender small business interest in promoting new sanitation options, as well as individual and community behaviour change. There is collaboration with major international donors and non-government organisations. The team has a talented and charismatic leader.

What the team does not have is access to the full array of theory and methods for synthesising the input of the different disciplines, along with all the relevant stakeholder knowledge. Nor does it have the ability to bring to bear all the different ways of teasing out and taking into account the knowledge gaps – the unknowns. Finally the team cannot tap into the wealth of information about how to provide effective integrated research support for policy and practice change.

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