Architectures of adaptive integration in large collaborative projects

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Collaborations to address complex societal problems associated with managing human-natural systems often require large teams comprised of scientists from multiple disciplines. For many such problems, large-scale, transdisciplinary projects whose members include scientists, stakeholders, and other professionals are necessary. The success of very large, transdisciplinary projects can be facilitated by attending to the diversity of types of collaboration that inevitably occur within them. As projects progress and evolve, the resulting dynamic collaborative heterogeneity within them constitutes architectures of adaptive integration (AAI). Management that acknowledges this dynamic and fosters and promotes awareness of it within a project can better facilitate the creativity and innovation required to address problems from a systems perspective. In successful large projects, AAI (1) functionally meets objectives and goals, (2) uses disciplinary expertise and concurrently bridges many disciplines, (3) has mechanisms to enable connection, (4) delineates boundaries to keep focus but retain flexibility, (5) continuously monitors and adapts, and (6) encourages project-wide awareness. These principles are illustrated using as case studies three large climate change and agriculture projects funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Key Words: architectures of adaptive integration; collaborative science; team science INTRODUCTIONGeneration of innovative science and its applications to address complex societal problems associated with managing humannatural systems requires research approaches that mirror the complexity of these systems. However, the architecture of large, multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, multiyear projects that undertake this requisite systems approach research is not well understood, despite increasing public and private funding and a growing discourse on transdisciplinarity and team science. In this synthesis paper, diverse conceptions of the processes and structures associated with conducting collaborative research are used to develop architectures of adaptive integration (AAI) for large-scale projects. In this context AAI is defined as the explicit and implicit dynamic structures and processes that characterize collaborations among heterogeneous groups of scientists and stakeholders working to address a shared problem affecting complex systems over time.

Holistic competence orientation in sustainability-related study programmes: lessons from implementing transdisciplinary student team research in Colombia, China, Mexico and Nicaragua

“…This involves interdisciplinary integration (i.e. integrating research of different disciplines) as well as science-practice interaction (Wright Morton et al 2015).…”

Transdisciplinary Research: Collaborative Leadership and Empowerment Towards Sustainability of Push–Pull Technology

“…That means the challenges require new ways of knowledge generation and decision making through the involvement of diverse stakeholders including those from outside academia [ibid.]. The process is promising when these approaches have clearly set out goals and competent management to facilitate creativity, innovation and management of conflicts which may exist or arise out of the stakeholder engagement [3]. Participation of non-academics contributes to democratizing the research process, thereby enabling production of better and socially more robust research outputs [4][5][6][7].…”

“…It is acknowledged that the individuals within the research teams with collaborative management skills appear to make a difference between success and failure in transdisciplinary efforts from their charismatic personality, leadership, knowledge base, broad network and engagement [30]. Such individuals have the ability to anticipate challenges during the transdisciplinary process, learn from failures in case they happen, and be flexible in the process and prepared to adapt to new conditions within the overarching objective of addressing the problem at hand [3]. Collaboration among the stakeholders is instrumental to ensure that their engagement and interactions worked in terms of learning and effective implementation of agricultural innovations.…”

Confronting Climate Change Challenges to Dryland Cereal Production: A Call for Collaborative, Transdisciplinary Research, and Producer Engagement

“…There is a growing body of literature concerned with interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity (e.g., Frodeman et al, 2017), but the challenges pertaining to comprehensively addressing large scale production system sustainability are unique (Morton et al, 2015). Participants in REACCH and TCSACC were committed to this view and to identifying the needed linkages across disciplines and sectors.…”

“…It aimed to improve knowledge of the production systems, identify opportunities to improve their efficiency and sustainability, promote farmer participation, provide decision support tools, educate producers and citizens at all levels. The conceptual framework, outputs and outcomes of the REACCH project can be accessed through its web site: https://www.reacchpna.org, and in publications, including some appearing in this special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: (1) Develop a theoretical framework integrating cropping system, economic and climate modeling (Abatzoglou et al, 2014;Antle et al, 2017;Stöckle et al, 2017), (2) Monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nitrogen and carbon dynamics in the production systems (Chi et al, , 2017Waldo et al, 2016;Kostyanovsky et al, 2017), (3) Compare current and aspirational production systems for productivity and GHG emission potential under current and projected climate Brown et al, 2017;Maaz T. M. et al, 2017;Stöckle et al, 2017), (4) Address the environmental, social, and economic factors influencing agriculture and technology adoption (Antle et al, 2017;Karimi et al, 2017;Kaur et al, 2017), (5) Anticipate climate change related changes in crop protection requirements (Davis et al, 2015a(Davis et al, ,b, 2017Eigenbrode et al, 2015;Foote et al, 2017), (6) Work closely with producers to develop and guide project activities (Kruger and Yorgey, 2017;Yorgey et al, 2017), (7) Educate students from elementary through graduate levels to prepare coming generations for challenges related to climate change in agriculture (White et al, 2014), (8) Ensure data from the project and related projects are managed to facilitate detecting trends and interdisciplinary collaboration (Flathers et al, 2017), and (9) Coordinate all these activities under an integrated, transdisciplinary framework Morton et al, 2015).…”