Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
subsequent adjustment or precision of the demands and research priorities to focus
upon.
Knowledge sharing has received attention in all projects, with joint workshops and
peer-reviews of each of the projects' results and articles. This has reportedly been fruit-
ful and enhanced knowledge exchange, capacity building and mutual understanding.
Thus far, exchange events have taken the form of physical meetings, but they could
also take the form of teleconferences in order to save time (and carbon emissions). The
use of a shared virtual working space is instrumental for some projects.
We do not yet observe the results of transdisciplinary research approaches,
whereby different knowledge sources and research methods are integrated instead
of being used separately. This may, however, require additional time to develop
sufficiently. Promises on innovation in the projects do not refer to new insights in trans-
disciplinary research methods or approaches to deal with conflicts and cooperation,
but rather to new tools or methods within the same research paradigm.
Examples of the uptake of results in policy and practice are present but remain rare,
a factor that is not entirely surprising at this early stage of the programme. However,
the level of involvement of public sector decision makers is considerably low, and the
engagement of this group of stakeholders is perceived as difficult to realise.
Exchange events have been organised at programme level, allowing the projects to
share ideas and initial findings. These have been enthusiastically visited, which suggests
that a real learning community is developing.
11.4 CONCLUSIONS AND REMAINING CHALLENGES
In creating a structure and funding modalities that allow consortia with research
and non-research institutions to collaborate and share responsibilities and knowl-
edge inputs to work at the interface between research and development objectives,
the programme and its seven projects are innovative and ambitious. As far as we
know, this level of interaction and transdisciplinarity has not often been realised, and
we expect that lessons of broader importance can be derived from this experience. This
is ambitious, because it requires both research and non-research institutions to funda-
mentally change their way of 'doing business'. After all, both types of institutions have
very different incentive structures and interest groups to which they are accountable.
Universities and individual academics are judged on the basis of their “scientific excel-
lence,'' which is in turn largely assessed in terms of the number of papers they publish
in peer-reviewed journals. These journals look for scientific quality and do not primar-
ily judge on the basis of development relevance. Private sector, civil society and public
sector institutions are accountable to the general public, their shareholders or their
members, and do not put research quality at the forefront. They usually have legiti-
mate interests to achieve concrete development results and consider good science as
helpful if it can help improve the quality of development results, but it is not their first
concern. While research institutions tend to adopt a linear process from identification
of research questions to acquiring convincing responses over a period of several years,
non-research institutions tend to work in a less predictable way. They instead need
to rapidly respond to contextual changes and stakeholder opinions to which they are
accountable. We therefore believe that one overall challenge is to abandon the tradition
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