Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
14.3.5
Collaboration
The complexity of socioecosystems is forcing scientist to engage in collaborative
work. As we suggested above, interdisciplinary research does not mean converting
ourselves into generalists. What it means is the need of collaboration with scientists
from other disciplines (social scientists and natural scientists working together on a
common problem). And because of the regional and global scope, these collective
efforts have transcended our traditional local disciplinary institutions, inducing the
creation of networks of teams at different scales. Even more, the socioecosystem
paradigm is stimulating the development of a truly transdisciplinary approach, in
which the intelligence behind the understanding of our world cannot come only
from the scientifi c research (Spangenberg
2011
), but also from knowledge acquired
in a more empirical way, sometimes over hundreds of generations (Toledo
1995
;
Rozzi et al.
2008
; Rozzi
2010
). Following this new approach, research is conducted
in collaboration with other sectors of society directly involved in the particular
problem that is the object of study. Research tools and approaches like “co-design”,
“participatory monitoring” and “citizen science” have been developed to incorpo-
rate local and traditional knowledge into the research process (Burgos et al
.
2013
).
14.3.6
Institutional Arrangements
All of the above are pressuring scientifi c institutions interested in transdisciplinary
research to fi nd new and creative arrangements to accomplish the task. A diffi cult
aspect is how research performance should be evaluated. Peer review is very impor-
tant to assure the rigor of the research, but it is not enough if we accept the commit-
ment to cross the line from “curiosity driven” research all the way to “solution base”
research. Under these new conditions, other sector of society involved in the enquiry
subject should participate in the evaluation process to assure the
pertinence of the
study
, since they are experts in the matter (Spangenberg
2011
). Another complicated
aspect of collaborative research, in which many groups and institutions are involved,
are “author's rights” and “governance” issues. Sharing data protocols and multi-
authored documents are becoming important aspects within socioecosystem
research. Polycentric governance approach in which multiple governing bodies
interact to make and enforce rules within a specifi c arena or location, have been
suggested to deal with this multi-level and nested institutions (Simonsen et al.
2014
). Most academic institutions are big and old, with enormous inertia. It has
been very diffi cult to move them toward new administrative arrangements. One way
to overcome the need for interaction between scientists of different disciplines and
sectors without dramatically changing the current administrative arrangement has
been the creation of meta-institutes. They consist in a particular arrangement, in
which the associated researchers, belonging to different institutions and themati-
cally and geographically separated, collaborate on a regular basis with the help of
new information technologies and communication protocols.
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