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Innovative Research to Connect Science to Action
Annapolis, Md – The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) and Resources for the Future (RFF) recently received a grant in the amount of $250,000 from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The research supported by this generous grant will focus on how information flows between researchers, institutions, and decision-makers, especially at the federal level.
Understanding these pathways should lead to the advancement of actionable science (i.e., science co-developed with, inspired by, and adaptive to the needs of people who use scientific knowledge to inform decision-making). Ultimately, the research will focus on administrative and organizational innovations that improve the federal government’s ability to both produce and use socio-environmental science.
“This is really exciting research looking at how scientific knowledge is used in institutional decision-making, especially at the federal level,” says Dr. Jim Boyd, SESYNC’s Director of Social Science and Policy, and Director of Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth and Senior Fellow at RFF. “Often, there is a disconnect between what scientists do and what knowledge decision-makers need. But there are steps we can take to improve that relationship; that’s the motivation behind this project.”
“The traditional approach to science is linear,” says Dr. Jonathan Kramer, SESYNC’s Director of Interdisciplinary Science. “There is little or no feedback between decision-makers and researchers: science is conducted, followed by an attempt to translate results into practical terms that are then fed to decision-makers. Science users remain uninvolved in, and uninformed about, the semantics, values, and methods associated with the science being delivered to them.”
The project will establish a community of researchers, federal partners, experts, and other invested participants who will examine questions vital to science-informed policy and policy-informed science, including:
- How do decision-makers communicate their knowledge needs to researchers, and how to researchers communicate their capabilities to decision-makers?
- Who is involved in research and decision-making processes, and what are their roles?
- What are the barriers to producing actionable science?
- How can actionable science research achieve maximum dissemination and impact outside its host agency?
The project will result in a set of linked reports on strategic assessments, aimed at various communities of practice.
“Linking what we know to what we do is no small task. Researchers and decision-makers are often isolated from each other, both intellectually and institutionally,” says Dr. Margaret Palmer, SESYNC’s Executive Director. “Bridging those gaps will save time, money, and—we hope—build the trust and legitimacy needed to strengthen decisions pertinent to important natural resources and ecological issues.”
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The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, funded through a National Science Foundation grant to the University of Maryland, is a research center dedicated to solving complex problems at the intersection of human and natural systems. Visit www.sesync.org for more information.
Resources for the Future is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that conducts independent research on environmental, energy, natural resource, and environmental health issues, and a SESYNC Founding Partner. Visit www.rff.org for more information.
Press Contacts:
Melissa Andreychek, SESYNC
(410) 919-4990
mandreychek@sesync.org
Peter Nelson, RFF
(202) 328-5191
nelson@rff.org
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