The value of facilitation in interdisciplinary socio-environmental team research

Graef, Dana; Motzer, Nicole; Kramer, Jonathan G.

doi:10.1007/s42532-021-00082-7

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…These processes include establishing group norms, relationship building, idea generation, decision‐making, and having authentic dialog about team values. As such, meetings are critical to building and maintaining team culture and are the cornerstone to centering and upholding team values (Graef et al., 2021). However, when conducted poorly, meetings can damage team culture and limit teams from integrating and embracing member diversity.…”

Section: The Tools To Help Us Get There: Our Work In Progress On Team...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity, Diversity, and Community as the Basis for Critical Zone Science and Education

et al. 2023

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Responding to the social and environmental challenges of the Anthropocene requires that we integrate science across multiple perspectives, approaches, and disciplines in equitable and culturally responsive ways. While critical zone (CZ) science has made large strides in bridging natural, social, and education science disciplines, the field has been slower to address the lack of diversity, especially in terms of “race” and ethnicity. This means that CZ science and education do not fully reflect all communities they must serve, and representation and access to careers in the field therefore remain limited to mostly white individuals. Despite best intentions, predominantly white science and education teams frequently consider values such as diversity, equity, or inclusion in later stages of work instead of centering these values as the foundation from the outset. Here, we reflect on how our CZ Collaborative Network Project has both struggled with, and is learning to, authentically center and uphold our values in our own work. Our goal is to normalize the concept that culturally responsive CZ science and education requires intentional trust and relationship building, flexibility, and continued learning. To support our evolving work, we have relied on team science practices, and we offer insights into the strategies and tools that help us with our aspiration to center and integrate our values of diversity, equity, and community into team processes.

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Section: The Tools To Help Us Get There: Our Work In Progress On Team...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Equity, Diversity, and Community as the Basis for Critical Zone Science and Education

et al. 2023

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“…Process-wise, the meeting was built around an iterative series of full group discussions, focused breakout group discussions, and individual activities (as illustrated in Figure 1). Expert facilitation and expert elicitation were the predominant methods of choice [43]. Day 1 entailed surveying the existing sustainability leadership and LTS landscapes in order to locate gaps between trainings ideals and realities and defining an initial list of core LTS aptitudes and skills.…”

Section: Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Programmatic Expertise from across the US and Canada to Model and Guide Leadership Training for Graduate Students in Sustainability

et al. 2021

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It is critical that future sustainability leaders possess the skills and aptitudes needed to tackle increasingly ‘wicked’ challenges. While much has been done to identify this need, inadequate Leadership Training for graduate students in Sustainability (LTS) continues to plague even the most highly-resourced institutions. Collectively, the authors of this paper represent the small yet growing number of LTS programs across the United States and Canada working to close this training gap. In this paper, we describe the integrative approach we took to synthesize our collective knowledge of LTS with our diverse programmatic experiences and, ultimately, translate that work into concrete guidance for LTS implementation and design. We present a framework for the suite of key LTS aptitudes and skills yielded by our collaborative approach, and ground these recommendations in clear, real-world examples. We apply our framework to the creation of an open-access curricular database rich with training details, and link this database to an interactive network map focused on sharing programmatic designs. Together, our process and products transform many disparate components into a more comprehensive and accessible understanding of what we as LTS professionals do, with a view to helping others who are looking to do the same for the next generation of sustainability leaders.

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“…Some scholars argue against attempting to achieve epistemological consensus in these scenarios (Laborde et al, 2019). Indeed, collaboration can be threatened when researchers lose autonomy in decision-making or have concerns that their disciplinary or specialist knowledge are ignored or devalued in comparison to others (Garforth & Kerr, 2011; Graef et al, 2021; Stokols, Misra, et al, 2008; Thompson, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing Autonomy and Collaboration in Large-Scale and Disciplinary Diverse Teams for Successful Qualitative Research

Bates

Gouais

Barnfield

et al. 2023

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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Large scale, multi-organisational collaborations between researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds are increasingly recognised as important to investigate and tackle complex real-world problems. However differing expectations, epistemologies, and preferences across these teams pose challenges to following best practice for ensuring high-quality and rigorous qualitative research, while maintaining goodwill and team cohesion across team members. This article presents critical reflections from the real-world experiences of a team navigating the challenges of collaborating on a large-scale, cross-disciplinary interview study. Based on these experiences, we extend the literature on large team qualitative collaboration by highlighting the importance of balancing autonomy and collaboration, and propose eight recommendations to support high quality research and team cohesion. We identify how this balance can be achieved at different times: when centralised decision-making should be prioritised, and autonomy can be allowed. We argue that prioritising time to develop shared understandings, build trust, and creating positive environments that accept and support differing researcher perspectives on qualitative methods is paramount. By exploring and reflecting on these differences, teams can identify how and when to support autonomy in decision-making, when to move forward collaboratively, and how to ensure that shared processes reflect the needs of the whole team. The reflexive findings, emanating from practical experience, can inform large research teams undertaking qualitative studies to explore complex issues. We make an original contribution to qualitative methods research by arguing that balancing autonomy and collaboration is the key to promoting high quality research and cohesion in large teams.

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The value of facilitation in interdisciplinary socio-environmental team research

Cited by 12 publications

References 22 publications

Equity, Diversity, and Community as the Basis for Critical Zone Science and Education

Equity, Diversity, and Community as the Basis for Critical Zone Science and Education

Integrating Programmatic Expertise from across the US and Canada to Model and Guide Leadership Training for Graduate Students in Sustainability

Balancing Autonomy and Collaboration in Large-Scale and Disciplinary Diverse Teams for Successful Qualitative Research

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