Partner – GAIA journal – Integration and Implementation Insights

Public participation geographical information systems

June 16, 2023January 31, 2023

By Nora Fagerholm, María García-Martín, Mario Torralba, Claudia Bieling and Tobias Plieninger

authors_nora-fagerholm_maría-garcía-martín_mario-torralba_claudia-bieling_tobias-plieni — 1. Nora Fagerholm; 2. María García-Martín; 3. Mario Torralba; 4. Claudia Bieling; 5. Tobias Plieninger (biographies)

What is encompassed by public participation geographical information systems? What resources are required? What are the strengths and weaknesses of involving stakeholders?

Participatory mapping combines cartography with participatory approaches to put the knowledge, experiences, and aspirations of people on a map. Under this umbrella term, public participation geographical information systems refers to the use of geographical information systems (GIS) and modern communication technologies to engage the general public and stakeholders in participatory planning and decision-making.

In practice, the terms public participation GIS and participatory GIS are often used interchangeably to:

identify place-based values, perceptions, or attitudes, such as landscape values, ecosystem services, environmental quality factors, perceived problems or unpleasant experiences;
analyse spatial behaviour of people, most notably everyday practices and activities, such as mobility patterns, routes travelled, or places visited;
communicate preferences or visions about future land use;
gather place-based observations through so-called geographic citizen science, such as trail networks or wildlife observations.

Participatory scenario planning

August 3, 2023December 6, 2022

authors_maike-hamann_tanja-hichert_nadia-sitas — 1. Maike Hamann (biography)
2. Tanja Hichert (biography)
3. Nadia Sitas (biography)

By Maike Hamann, Tanja Hichert and Nadia Sitas

Within the many different ways of developing scenarios, what are useful general procedures for participatory processes? What resources are required? What are the strengths and weaknesses of involving stakeholders?

Scenarios are vignettes or narratives of possible futures, and when used in a set, usually depict purposefully divergent visions of what the future may hold. The point of scenario planning is not to predict the future, but to explore its uncertainties. Scenario development has a long history in corporate and military strategic planning, and is also commonly used in global environmental assessments to link current decision-making to future impacts. Participatory scenario planning extends scenario development into the realm of stakeholder-engaged research.

In general, the process for participatory scenario planning broadly follows three phases.

1. Identifying stakeholders and setting the scene

Integrating context, formats and effects in transdisciplinary research

December 2, 2022March 15, 2022

By tdAcademy 2021 GAIA paper authors

authors_td-academy-2021_gaia-paper — Author biographies

What are the key aspects of transdisciplinary research and how can they be integrated effectively?

Four key aspects of transdisciplinary research are:

context dependencies
innovative formats
societal effects
scientific effects.

These are illustrated in the figure below, along with a summary of an ‘ideal’ transdisciplinary research process.

1. Context dependencies

Context dependencies are the factors that influence both the research design and the interpretation of results and include:

Choosing a suitable transdisciplinary research framework

March 22, 2023May 26, 2020

By Gabriele Bammer

Author - Gabriele Bammer — Gabriele Bammer (biography)

What are some of the key frameworks that can be used for transdisciplinary research? What are their particular strengths? How can you choose one that’s most suitable for your transdisciplinary project?

The nine frameworks described here were highlighted in a series for which I was the commissioning editor. The series was published in the scientific journal GAIA: Ecological Perspectives in Science and Society between mid-2017 and end-2019.

Choosing among them is not a matter of right or wrong, but of each being more or less helpful for a particular problem in a particular context. And, of course, different frameworks can also be used in combination.

The brief descriptions and figures that follow aim to encapsulate each framework’s key strengths.

Structure matters: Real-world laboratories as a new type of large-scale research infrastructure

August 24, 2021June 12, 2018

By Franziska Stelzer, Uwe Schneidewind, Karoline Augenstein and Matthias Wanner

What are real-world laboratories? How can we best grasp their transformative potential and their relationship to transdisciplinary projects and processes? Real-world laboratories are about more than knowledge integration and temporary interventions. They establish spaces for transformation and reflexive learning and are therefore best thought of as large-scale research infrastructure. How can we best get a handle on the structural dimensions of real-word laboratories?

What are real-world laboratories?

Real-world laboratories are a targeted set-up of a research “infrastructure“ or a “space“ in which scientific actors and actors from civil society cooperate in the joint production of knowledge in order to support a more sustainable development of society.

Although such a laboratory establishes a structure, most discussions about real-world laboratories focus on processes of co-design, co-production and co-evaluation of knowledge, as shown in the figure below. Surprisingly, the structural dimension has received little attention in the growing field of literature.

Overcoming structure as the blind spot

We want to raise awareness of the importance of the structural dimension of real-world laboratories, including physical infrastructure as well as interpretative schemes or social norms, as also shown in the figure below. A real-world laboratory can be understood as a structure for nurturing niche development, or a space for experimentation that interacts (and aims at changing) structural conditions at the regime level.

Apart from this theoretical perspective, we want to add a concrete “infrastructural” perspective, as well as a reflexive note on the role of science and researchers. Giddens’ use of the term ‘structure’ helps to emphasize that scientific activity is always based on rules (eg., rules of proper research and use of methods in different disciplines) and resources (eg., funding, laboratories, libraries).

The two key challenges of real-world laboratories are that:

both scientists and civil society actors are involved in the process of knowledge production; and,
knowledge production takes place in real-world environments instead of scientific laboratories.

Ten steps to make your research more relevant

September 13, 2021January 23, 2018

By Christian Pohl, Pius Krütli and Michael Stauffacher

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research often aims at broader impact in society. But, how can you make such impact happen?

A researcher might face a number of questions (s)he was not necessarily trained to address, such as:

How can I be sure that my research question will provide knowledge relevant for society?
Who in this fuzzy thing called society are my primary target audiences anyway?
Are some of them more important for my project than others?

Over the last several years, we developed 10 steps to provide a structured way of thinking through how to improve the societal relevance of a research project, as summarised in the table below.

When working with researchers to plan their impact, we usually go through the 10 steps in a workshop format, as follows:

Before each step we provide a brief account of the underlying theory and clarify why the step matters.
Then we ask the researchers to complete a concrete task, reflecting on their own project
Researchers usually also discuss their reflections with each other and learn about different approaches to address societal relevance.
They also discuss the tasks with us, but we are not necessarily the ones who know the right answers.

The ten steps work best in a context where a research project leader, for example, provides detailed project knowledge and the whole group is interested in discussing the societal impact of research.

In our experience, the ten steps trigger reflection on one’s own research and allow for fruitful coproduction of knowledge in the project team on how to improve the societal relevance of projects.

What techniques have you used to plan, and reflect on, making your research socially relevant?

michael-stauffacher — Michael Stauffacher (biography)

Three schools of transformation thinking

June 9, 2021September 5, 2017

By Uwe Schneidewind and Karoline Augenstein

authors_uwe-schneidewind_karoline-augenstein — 1. Uwe Schneidewind (biography)
2. Karoline Augenstein (biography)

‘Transformation’ has become a buzzword in debates about sustainable development. But while the term has become very popular, it is often unclear what is meant exactly by ‘transformation’.

The fuzziness of the concept can be seen as a strength, giving it metaphoric power and facilitating inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation. However, this fuzziness means there is also a danger of the transformation debate being co-opted by powerful actors and used strategically to impede societal change towards more sustainable pathways.

Toolkits for transdisciplinary research

December 1, 2022July 25, 2017

By Gabriele Bammer

If you want to undertake transdisciplinary research, where can you find relevant concepts and methods? Are there compilations or toolkits that are helpful?

I’ve identified eight relevant toolkits, which are described briefly below and in more detail in the journal GAIA’s Toolkits for Transdisciplinarity series.

One toolkit provides concepts and methods relevant to the full range of transdisciplinary research, while the others cover four key aspects: (i) collaboration, (ii) synthesis of knowledge from relevant disciplines and stakeholders, (iii) thinking systemically, and (iv) making change happen.

Learning to tackle wicked problems through games / Aprendiendo a hacer frente a problemas perversos a través de los juegos/ Apprendre à affronter les problèmes sournois à travers les jeux

October 9, 2023April 11, 2017

By Claude Garcia, Anne Dray and Patrick Waeber

authors_claude-garcia_anne-dray_patrick-waeber — 1. Claude Garcia (biography)
2. Anne Dray (biography)
3. Patrick Waeber (biography)

A Spanish version and a French version of this post are available

Can we help the next generation of policy makers, business leaders and citizens to become creative, critical and independent thinkers? Can we make them aware of the nature of the problems they will be confronted with? Can we strengthen their capacity to foster and lead stakeholder processes to address these problems?

Yes.

We build on our experience as field researchers on environmental issues. We develop models that link ecological, social and economic processes, based on real study cases. We transform these models into role-playing games, both cooperative and competitive. And we use them to let students – the next generation of policy makers, business leaders and citizens – explore the complexities of natural resources management. They discover the roles of trust, knowledge, communication and conflict in a friendly environment. As games unfold, players observe, experience, experiment, and devise rules to resolve the tensions between competing demands.