How can we improve knowledge exchange between researchers and decision-makers? Perhaps the Australian National Environmental Science Program Marine Biodiversity Hub is a good place to look for answers.
The Marine Biodiversity Hub is one of several research hubs that distribute funding to researchers from the National Environmental Science Program. All projects funded under this Program look to connect environmental research with end-user management and their needs.
Denis Karcher, a PhD student at the Australian National University, and colleagues interviewed a bunch of researchers, end-users, and Marine Biodiversity Hub executives to figure out...what makes for effective knowledge exchange. Here are some of the highlights of what they found:
👔 Engage early. A lot of engagement and investment needs to be done before any formal knowledge exchange interactions take place. This includes giving end-users a voice in deciding what projects are funded and ensuring primary end-users are assigned to individual projects so everyone knows who to engage with.
⌚ Engagement takes time, even within a setup like this Hub. Its
🚪 There's a lot of investment, and most of it is invisible or not well recognised. Time is obviously one of those big invisible and often unrecognised investments.
🤝 Having a collaborative, open-minded, dedicated, and skilled group, plus a good understanding of policy-making processes and science-policy communication, and spending time to build trusted relationships with end-users is something researchers should aspire to.
🤯 "End-users do not aim for being “impacted” and they simply expect that scientific information delivered by world experts is reliable."
🙂 Build relationships. Build trusting relationships. Build open relationships. Build relationships to last.
Enablers of knowledge exchange as seen by researchers and policy-makers. Credit Karcher et al. (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
Curious to know more?
Read the open access research for yourself 👇
Karcher, D. B., Cvitanovic, C., Colvin, R., & van Putten, I. (2023). Enabling successful science‐policy knowledge exchange between marine biodiversity research and management: An Australian case study. Environmental Policy and Governance. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2078