Creating connections to maximize the mobilization of ecological knowledge into effective practice

Abstract

Publishing research relevant to the management of biological resources and ecological systems is one of the aims of Ecological Solutions and Evidence (ESE). Collection of the necessary ecological data, and the chances that their analyses are successfully applied to conservation and management strategies, is frequently much improved when practitioners and academics work together on all aspects of a scientific project (Meadow et al., 2015;Walsh et al., 2019).To encourage, guide and hopefully increase the prevalence of co-designed projects, ESE hosted an Applied Ecology Resources (AER) Live workshop on the topic of creating and navigating successful co-designed research opportunities in 2021 (AER, 2021).We followed this up with an editorial on the topic (Kurle et al., 2022), co-design workshops at the 2023 annual meetings of the Ecological Society of America and the British Ecological Society, and a forthcoming co-design guide to help facilitate these partnerships. Finally, in the hopes of inspiring more ecologists to create and conduct co-designed research projects, we invited scientists to submit their Practice Insights, Perspectives, and Research Articles featuring examples of successful co-productionof knowledge and its applications to effective ecological solutions in this Special Feature.What follows is a wide-ranging collection of insights and advice for fostering co-designed projects, details of collaborative research for maintaining and restoring biodiversity and studies illustrating the importance of incorporating Indigenous knowledge and multiple stakeholders for expanding scientific participation, increasing successful outcomes and deepening access across multiple areas of expertise. We hope that this collection will inspire and challenge all of us to increase our efforts to forge scientific partnerships to broaden the reach of our ecological investigations and enhance their applications for more effective management and conservation. | CRE ATING EFFEC TIVE CO -DE S I G N PARTNER S HIPSWe recognize that there are still barriers to reaching across a perceived divide between practitioners and academics to create and carry out successful co-designed research (Bertuol-Garcia et al., 2018;Walsh et al., 2019), and we hope that the advice and success stories contained in this group of articles will inspire action to overcome those barriers. Couturier et al. (2023) present two stories of their experiences with long-term co-design partnerships, including potential challenges and best practices for increasing successful outcomes for biodiversity through collaborative ecosystem monitoring, assessment, and creation of effective conservation and management strategies. Piczak et al. (2022) use the example of Aquatic Habitat Toronto's (AHT) partnerships among a number of agencies to illustrate how enhancing knowledge co-production bridges the gap between 'knowledge generators' and 'knowledge users', thereby increasing the success of restoration ecology outcomes. Reaching back in time to generate meaningful modern data,...