Research on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, particularly projects aiming to contribute to practical adaptation initiatives, requires active involvement and collaboration with community members and local, regional and national organizations that use this research for policy‐making. Arctic communities are already experiencing and adapting to environmental and socio‐cultural changes, and researchers have a practical and ethical responsibility to engage with communities that are the focus of the research. This paper draws on the experiences of researchers working with communities across the Canadian Arctic, together with the expertise of Inuit organizations, Northern research institutes and community partners, to outline key considerations for effectively engaging Arctic communities in collaborative research. These considerations include: initiating early and ongoing communication with communities, and regional and national contacts; involving communities in research design and development; facilitating opportunities for local employment; and disseminating research findings. Examples of each consideration are drawn from climate change research conducted with communities in the Canadian Arctic.

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A little over a decade ago, Berkes (2004) argued that community conservation "starts from the ground up but deals with cross-scale relations", and that a more nuanced understanding is needed of "people, communities, institutions, and their interrelations at various levels". This perspective of community-based conservation (CBC) leads us into the realm of governance networks. We define governance as the formal and informal rules, rule-making systems, and actor networks at all levels (local, regional, global) that influence how societies identify, design, and implement conservation actions (adapted from Biermann et al. 2009; see also Lebel et al. 2006 andScarlett andMcKinney 2016). A focus on governance networks helps to draw attention to the relationships (or lack thereof) among individuals (eg harvesters, policy makers), organizations (eg local conservation committees, government agencies), and conservation objectives (eg restoration, protection, multi-use) (see Scarlett and McKinney 2016, and specifically Panel 1 therein, for more on governance networks, or network governance). Such a focus also highlights the interplay (good and bad) of values and interests among a diverse range of conservation actors.Governance networks are presumed to generate benefits by promoting interaction between organizations, agencies, and other actors through which conservation decisions are made and actions are taken (eg within and between the state, civil society, and the private sector; see Torfing 2005; Evans 2012; Panel 1 in Scarlett and McKinney 2016). These benefits may include opportunities to identify and resolve social conflicts -for example, between resource users and enforcement officersthat would otherwise undermine biodiversity protection or the cooperation necessary to establish protected areas (Redpath et al. 2013). However, such benefits may not always exist in practice, or the network arrangements that do exist may exacerbate unequal social relationships and obstruct conservation efforts, as is the case where powerful interests in the network (eg industry) can overwhelm the priorities of community-based actors (Agrawal and Gibson 1999;Raik et al. 2008; see also WebPanel 1). Governance networks can facilitate coordinated action and shared opportunities for learning among conservation scientists, policy makers, and communities. However, governance networks that link local, regional, and international actors just as often reflect social relationships and arrangements that can undermine conservation efforts, particularly those concerning community-level priorities. Here, we identify three "waypoints" or navigational guides to help researchers and practitioners explore these networks, and to inspire them to consider in a more systematic manner the social rules and relationships that influence conservation outcomes. These waypoints encourage those engaged in community-based conservation (CBC) to: (1) think about the networks in which they are embedded and the constellation of actors that influence conservation practice; (...

The alluring yet nebulous concept of transformative change is increasingly gaining traction in conversations about pathways to more sustainable futures. As such, new conceptual tools are needed to illuminate variety of actors, interests, and capacities at play in potentially radical experiments. This paper draws upon multi-level governance theory, sustainability transitions scholarship, and sustainability entrepreneurship literature, to interrogate the transformative potential of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We (1) identify characteristics of SMEs that might make them relatively more able to produce radical innovations, (2) explore dimensions of the broader socio-political context that influence the likelihood of this potential to be translated into action in urban spaces, and (3) discuss implications of these dynamics for transformative sustainability governance