Trade-offs and synergies in joint knowledge creation for coastal management: insights from ecology-oriented sand nourishment in the Netherlands

Abstract

In order to successfully inform environmental management, environmental research needs to balance legitimacy, credibility, and salience. This paper aims to identify tradeoffs and synergies between these three attributes in collaborative research for environmental management, and draws lessons for organizing such research. Empirically, it draws on a study of a research program on the ecological effects of coastal protection through sand nourishment. Our findings suggest that the legitimacy and salience of knowledge creation, particularly in an interactive governance context, are complementary. At the same time, we found trade-offs between practical relevance and fundamental knowledge creation, as well as between issue diversity and the depth and quality of scientific inquiry. Balancing the legitimacy, credibility, and salience of knowledge may be enabled by interactive knowledge creation involving policy-makers, experts and stakeholders. We conclude that successful managementoriented environmental research, particularly in the case of wicked problems, requires both a careful design of arrangements for stakeholder engagement, and wellestablished linkages to broader regulatory and institutional contexts.