Working Together for Better Outcomes: what we learned Katrin Prager Social Economic and Geographical Sciences katrin.prager@hutton.ac.uk CECHR Symposium 24 February 2016
With Kit Macleod, Mags Currie, Sue Morris
What we did DICE project (2012-2014) funded by James Hutton Institute. Outputs at: http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/projects/dice March 2015: Working together for better outcomes workshop with 36 representatives from a wide range of funders of land and water based research, researchers from leading interdisciplinary research organisation and those who use scientific outputs in their work
Capturing the learning at the workshop in a set of three guidance notes
Insights for collaborative working between researchers and non-research stakeholders captured in 3 guidance notes: 1) Funding interdisciplinary research: improving practices and processes 2) Working together for better outcomes: Good practice for interdisciplinary researchers 3) Working together for better outcomes: The role of research partnerships
Funding interdisciplinary research Stages Pre-call Call
“Ensure appropriate composition of review panel”
Review Contract Evaluation
“Capture lessons from progress reviews and post-project evaluation, and use these to enhance further processes”
Interdisciplinary researchers Levels: Individual Team
Research environment
“Relish being outside a disciplinary comfort zone”
“Be adaptive and keep funders involved as research evolves”
Research partnerships Thought questions for stages: Pre-collaboration Beginning of collaboration During collaboration
“Ask critical questions, including ‘what’s in it for me’”
End of collaboration After collaboration
“Build your capacity/ plan for post-project utilisation of research results”