Transporting ideas between marine and social sciences: experiences from interdisciplinary research programs

Abstract

The oceans comprise 70% of the surface area of our planet, contain some of the world’s richest natural resources and are one of the most significant drivers of global climate patterns. As the marine environment continues to increase in importance as both an essential resource reservoir and facilitator of global change, it is apparent that to find long-term sustainable solutions for our use of the sea and its resources and thus to engage in a sustainable blue economy, an integrated interdisciplinary approach is needed. As a result, interdisciplinary working is proliferating. We report here our experiences of forming interdisciplinary teams (marine ecologists, ecophysiologists,social scientists, environmental economists and environmental law specialists) to answer questions pertaining to the effects of anthropogenic-driven global change on the sustainability of resource use from the marine environment, and thus to transport ideas outwards from disciplinary confines. We use a framework derived from the literature on interdisciplinarity to enable us to explore processes of knowledge integration in two ongoing research projects, based on analyses of the purpose, form and degree of knowledge integration within each project. These teams were initially focused around a graduate program, explicitly designed for interdisciplinary training across the natural and social sciences, at the Gothenburg Centre for Marine Research at the University of Gothenburg, thus allowing us to reflect on our own experiences within the context of other multi-national,interdisciplinary graduate training and associated research programs.

Towards more predictive and interdisciplinary climate change ecosystem experiments

“…These include establishing common terminology, concepts and metrics 25,27,28 , a consistently lower funding success for interdisciplinary research projects 29 , and a general lack of interdisciplinary research positions 25 . The barriers depend largely on the purpose, forms and extent of knowledge integration, and their combination 30 . Although climate change research developed from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, and further to transdisciplinarity 31 , most collaborative work in environmental research is small-scale rather than large-scale interdisciplinary work 30 .…”

“…The barriers depend largely on the purpose, forms and extent of knowledge integration, and their combination 30 . Although climate change research developed from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, and further to transdisciplinarity 31 , most collaborative work in environmental research is small-scale rather than large-scale interdisciplinary work 30 . Small-scale integration refers to collaborations between similar partners (for example, different natural science disciplines), while large-scale integration crosses broader boundaries (such as between natural and social science) 30 .…”

Look Who’s Asking—Reflections on Participatory and Transdisciplinary Marine Research Approaches

“…Similarly, participatory research (disciplinary or transdisciplinary), done in collaboration with local communities, have been increasingly adopted in marine conservation (Ban et al, 2013;Foale et al, 2017;Turner et al, 2017). However, questions remain regarding the degree of participation and autonomy assigned to local communities.…”

From Monodisciplinary via Multidisciplinary to an Interdisciplinary Approach Investigating Air-Sea Interactions – a SOLAS Initiative

“…For both topics, SOLAS scientists participated in published summaries for policy makers (Wallace et al 2010;IGBP, IOC, and SCOR 2013). These examples highlight that a coordinated research design from the outset is required to achieve an interdisciplinary approach, successfully bridging the gaps between marine scientists, policy makers and practitioners (Weichselgartner and Marandino 2012;Turner, Bhatta et al 2017). Thus, the goal for future SOLAS research is to develop research questions in order to co-design future projects related to the SOLAS Science and Society initiative ( Figure 2).…”