Engaging with stakeholders to produce actionable science: a framework and guidance

Natural and cultural resource managers are increasingly working with the scientific community to create information on how best to adapt to the current and projected impacts of climate change. Engaging with these managers is a strategy that researchers can use to ensure that scientific outputs and findings are actionable (or useful and usable). In this article, the authors adapt Davidson’s wheel of participation to characterize and describe common stakeholder engagement strategies across the spectrum of Inform, Consult, Participate, and Empower. This adapted framework provides researchers with a standardized vocabulary for describing their engagement approach, guidance on how to select an approach, methods for implementing engagement, and potential barriers to overcome. While there is often no one “best” approach to engaging with stakeholders, researchers can use the objectives of their project and the decision context in which their stakeholders operate to guide their selection. Researchers can also revisit this framework over time as their project objectives shift and their stakeholder relationships evolve.

Historical Ecology: A Robust Bridge between Archaeology and Ecology

How can the disintegration of ecosystems, the foundation of life on Earth, be halted and these critical systems be rehabilitated? For scholars, the action list is long: increase the pool of expertise by engaging all relevant knowledge communities, collect rapidly disappearing data, analyze with both familiar and new methods, and apply the results of actionable science to policy and practice. This enormously complex and urgent activity requires an integrated research framework with the flexibility to accommodate the global diversity of places, peoples, and processes and to examine future options. Based on evidence of environmental change and human activity, the framework termed historical ecology assembles tools to construct an evidence-validated, open-ended narrative of the evolution and transformation of specific ecosystems and landscapes. Welcoming knowledge from scholars and communities of both heritage and practice, this comprehensive and systemic understanding offers insights, models, and ideas for the durable future of contemporary landscapes. The article evaluates how practitioners could adjust aspects of practice and improve access to policy makers, and the discussion applies to regions and localities everywhere.

Listening to Stakeholders: Initiating Research on Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Heavy Precipitation Events in the Contiguous U.S. by First Understanding What Stakeholders Need

Heavy precipitation events and their associated flooding can have major impacts on communities and stakeholders. There is a lack of knowledge, however, about how stakeholders make decisions at the sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales (i.e., two weeks to three months). To understand how decisions are made and S2S predictions are or can be used, the project team for “Prediction of Rainfall Extremes at Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Periods” (PRES2iP) conducted a two-day workshop in Norman, Oklahoma, during July 2018. The workshop engaged 21 professionals from environmental management and public safety communities across the contiguous United States in activities to understand their needs for S2S predictions of potential extended heavy precipitation events. Discussions and role-playing activities aimed to identify how workshop participants manage uncertainty and define extreme precipitation, the timescales over which they make key decisions, and the types of products they use currently. This collaboration with stakeholders has been an integral part of PRES2iP research and has aimed to foster actionable science. The PRES2iP team is using the information produced from this workshop to inform the development of predictive models for extended heavy precipitation events and to collaboratively design new forecast products with our stakeholders, empowering them to make more-informed decisions about potential extreme precipitation events.

Bottom-up conservation: Using translational ecology to inform conservation priorities for a recreational fishery

Translational ecology defines a collaborative effort among scientists and stakeholders to rapidly translate environmental problems into action. This approach can be applied in a fisheries management context when information needed to inform regulations is unavailable, yet conservation concerns exist. Our research uses a translational ecology framework to assess the stock status and develop research priorities for the Crevalle Jack (Caranx hippos) in the Florida Keys, U.S.A., a currently unregulated species. Interview data that compiled expert fishing guide knowledge were used to develop hypotheses tested using existing fisheries-dependent datasets to check for agreement among sources and assess the consistency of observed patterns. Six hypotheses were developed concerning the status and trends of the Crevalle Jack population in the Florida Keys, and four of these hypotheses received clear support, with agreement between guide observations and one or more of the fisheries-dependent datasets. The results of our study outline an effective translational ecology approach for recreational fisheries management designed to rapidly recognize potential management needs as identified by fishing guides, which allows for actionable science and proactive management.

COVID-19 pandemic: the beginning, the end and the path to recovery

The coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 pandemic is the nastiest public health, economic, and societal crisis of our lifetime. When this global emergency hit, our entire institution quickly pivoted to deliver the actionable science that decision-makers need in times of crisis. The steps taken at the beginning of this crisis to solve the immediate, day-to-day challenges posed by the pandemic and eventually rebuild a healthier, more robust and resilient nation and world. Ensuring strong demand for and endorsing acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccines is crucial to accomplishing herd immunity, shielding the most vulnerable populations, and reopening social and economic life. This perspective article highlights the importance of equitable vaccine allocation and public engagement, and message delivery strategies to ensure demand and promote acceptance.

The Florida Water and Climate Alliance (FloridaWCA): Developing a stakeholder-scientist partnership to create actionable science in climate adaptation and water resource management

Capsule summaryThe FloridaWCA represents a successful example of stakeholder-scientist partnership to increase the relevance of climate science data and tools at time and space scales needed to support decision-making in water resource management, planning, and supply operations in Florida.