Navigating Actionable Science in the Arctic

Overview

Management agencies and funding partners increasingly call for actionable science—science that can be directly applied to achieve specific goals. This course supports researchers, from early to late-career, to learn how to navigate actionable science through the lifecycle of a research project, from contexts and inputs to implementation and finally outcomes. It covers current literature on convergence, co-production of knowledge, impactful science, boundary spanning, and engaged research. Capturing the challenges of putting theory to practice, interviews with practitioners are utilized throughout the course. These contributions come from non-academic partners who have firsthand experience in actionable science and co-production with both governmental land and resource management entities and Indigenous organizations at the local and regional scale.

Financial support for the development of this course was provided by the Research Networking Activity for Sustained Coordinated Observations of Arctic Change (RNA CoObs) (NSF# 1936805), the Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center (USGS# G17AC00213), and a UAF Alaska Leadership Initiative Arctic Engagement Award.

Syllabus

Module 1: Context

Introduction to the contexts that influence research in the Arctic, including funding structures, capacity, Arctic Indigenous peoples and communities, Indigenous Knowledges, resource management decision-making, and boundary spanning.

Module 2: Inputs

Understanding how to set-up a successful project, including education/training, types of actionable science, communication skills, and building and maintaining partnerships.

Module 3: Implementation

Overviewing the necessary steps to implementing a productive project, including project management, ethics, facilitating convergence and co-analysis, outputs (deliverables and products), and alternative outputs (e.g. web tools and science communications).

Module 4: Outcomes

Introduction to how to define and evaluate success in actionable science projects, with topics including how science contributes to societal outcomes, evaluation methods, and co-defining success and steps needed to achieve success.