Content uploaded by Mark S. Reed
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Mark S. Reed on Aug 25, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Social barriers and opportunities to the implementation of the England Peat Strategy
Figures
Figures - uploaded by Mark S. Reed
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Mark S. Reed
Content may be subject to copyright.
... Whilst empirical work applying the framework has recently started appearing (O'Connor and Kenter 2019; Reed et al. 2020;Harmáčková et al. 2021;Kelly-Quinn et al. 2022;Azzopardi et al. 2022), Neuteleers et al. (2020) have opened debate about how the framework was evolved from the original three frames described by O'Neill et al. (2008) and how we interpreted intrinsic and relational values when defining the framework. In this paper, we respond to these comments, and in doing so re-instate the salience of the Life Framework as a straightforward way of organising environmental values compatible with diverse conceptual frameworks, including ecosystem Services (ES) and nature's contributions to people (NCP), whilst at the same time seeking to move beyond their ethical and ontological limitations in terms of anthropocentrism and dualism (Jax et al. 2013;Silvertown 2015;Cooper et al. 2016;Kopnina et al. 2018;Kenter 2018;Kolinjivadi 2019;Muradian and Gómez-Baggethun 2021). ...
... Such ontologies can be found across the world in diverse forms, for example in Ubuntu in various parts of Africa (Chibvongodze 2016) or in Hawaiian understandings of values (Gould et al. 2019). In western empirical work applying the Life Frames, local people also expressed views and experiences of holism and oneness both when prompted with interview (Reed et al. 2020), questionnaire (Kelly-Quinn et al. 2022), or workshop (Harmáčková et al. 2021) questions expressing the living as nature frame, and in analysis of secondary data (O'Connor and Kenter 2019). Furthermore, schools of thought in science and technology studies (Whatmore 2002;Law and Mol 2008), the environmental humanities (Neimanis et al. 2015), multispecies thinking (Haraway 2018;Celermajer 2020), and new materialism (Whatmore 2006;Bennett 2010) have all challenged dualistic ontological framings of nature and society, such as through notions of agency, affect and the materiality of the more-than-human world. ...
The Life Framework of Values links the diverse ways we experience and think of nature with the diverse ways nature matters. In this paper, we further develop and clarify the Life Framework in response to comments by Neuteleers et al. (2020). They supported its application to move beyond the instrumentalism and anthropocentrism associated with ecosystem services and nature's contributions to people, but were critical of our addition of the living as nature frame to O'Neill et al.'s (2008) original three (living from, in and with the natural world), and of the way we defined intrinsic and relational values. We argue that the original presentation of the frames was as distinct sources of concern for nature. The living as frame, characterised by oneness between nature and people, presents a unique source of concern not adequately represented by the original three frames. Whilst the Life Framework is open to diverse definitions of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values, we present straightforward interpretations that are compatible with multiple ethical systems and can effectively serve deliberative processes. We demonstrate that intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values do not map onto the life frames one-to-one, as each frame layers multiple value justifications. Whilst a key purpose of the Life Framework is to facilitate recognition of a more inclusive set of values in valuation and policy, it can also enable more effective organisation, communication, assessment, bridging and deliberation of values. It also provides multiple levers for sustainability transformation, particularly by fully recognising holistic and relational understandings of people and nature.
... The research community has an important role to play in overcoming this deficit. However, this will be impeded by low levels of trust towards researchers, who may not share land manager values (Reed et al., 2020). For example, substantial differences exist between solutions that researchers deem effective and those that land managers deem practical or economic (Taft, 2014). ...
... Governments may have a role to play in scenarios that are not cost-effective for private C markets (due to high implementation costs/limited benefits). They may also be required to regulate private schemes and provide longer-term security to land managers who will be bearing outsized personal risks to produce public goods (Buschmann et al., 2020;Reed et al., 2020). There will likely be a need for some pro-environmental regulation (e.g. on maximum ...
Drained, lowland agricultural peatlands are greenhouse gas (GHG) emission hotspots and a large but vulnerable store of irrecoverable carbon. They exhibit soil loss rates of ~2.0 cm yr‐1 and are estimated to account for 32% of global cropland emissions whilst producing only 1.1% of crop kilocalories. Carbon dioxide emissions account for >80% of their terrestrial GHG emissions and are largely controlled by water table depth. Reducing drainage depths is therefore essential for responsible peatland management. Peatland restoration can substantially reduce emissions. However, this may conflict with societal needs to maintain productive use, to protect food security and livelihoods. Wetland agriculture strategies will therefore be required to adapt agriculture to the wetland character of peatlands, and balance GHG mitigation against productivity, where halting emissions is not immediately possible. Paludiculture may substantially reduce GHG emissions but will not always be viable in the current economic landscape. Reduced drainage intensity systems may deliver partial reductions in the rate of emissions, with smaller modifications to existing systems. These compromise systems may face fewer hurdles to adoption and minimize environmental harm until societal conditions favour strategies that can halt emissions. Wetland agriculture will face agronomic, socio‐economic and water management challenges, and careful implementation will be required. Diversity of values and priorities amongst stakeholders creates the potential for conflict. Successful implementation will require participatory research approaches and co‐creation of workable solutions. Policymakers, private sector funders and researchers have key roles to play but adoption risks would fall predominantly on land managers. Development of a robust wetland agriculture paradigm is essential to deliver resilient production systems and wider environmental benefits. The challenge of responsible use presents an opportunity to rethink peatland management and create thriving, innovative and green wetland landscapes for everyone’s future benefit, whilst making a vital contribution to global climate change mitigation.
... We drew our data from a workshop through which the stakeholder collaboration took place, allowing us to observe micro-level interactions in real time and to account for the influence of design characteristics on frame deliberation. The aim of the workshop was for scientists to work with stakeholders to identify options for managing and protecting peatland ecosystems and upland rural communities in the North Pennines after Brexit, taking into account the peatland ecosystem as well as related social and cultural practices such as recreation, sheep grazing and grouse shooting (also see Reed et al., 2017bReed et al., , 2020. By the end of the workshop, stakeholders had to jointly decide on recommendations for (a) what environmental land management options to be included in the governmental peat management payment scheme, and (b) what 'fair price' (Kenter, 2020) should be paid for those. ...
... For example, emphasising different views of what it meant to protect the environment (e.g., preventing wildfires now through controlled burning or preventing wildfires in the long run through rewetting and not burning) could have led to different elaborations of the environmental frame, splitting it into different types of environmental frames, for example more control-versus more 're-wilding'-based environmental frames. It is also important to note that shared frames dominated despite the burning issue having led to significant conflict in relation to management of UK uplands, including contestation of the scientific evidence and un-nuanced, highly emotive and sometimes overtly hostile media publications that have significantly hindered balanced debate (Davies et al., 2016;Reed et al., 2020), including involving some of the organisations represented in the workshop. ...
Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) have been praised as vehicles for tackling complex sustainability issues, but their success relies on the reconciliation of stakeholders’ divergent perspectives. We yet lack a thorough understanding of the micro-level mechanisms by which stakeholders can deal with these differences. To develop such understanding, we examine what frames—i.e., mental schemata for making sense of the world—members of MSIs use during their discussions on sustainability questions and how these frames are deliberated through social interactions. Whilst prior framing research has focussed on between-frame conflicts, we offer a different perspective by examining how and under what conditions actors use shared frames to tackle ‘within-frame conflicts’ on views that stand in the way of joint decisions. Observations of a deliberative environmental valuation workshop and interviews in an MSI on the protection of peatlands—ecosystems that contribute to carbon retention on a global scale — demonstrated how the application and deliberation of shared frames during micro-level interactions resulted in increased salience, elaboration, and adjustment of shared frames. We interpret our findings to identify characteristics of deliberation mechanisms in the case of within-frame conflicts where shared frames dominate the discussions, and to delineate conditions for such dominance. Our findings contribute to an understanding of collaborations in MSIs and other organisational settings by demonstrating the utility of shared frames for dealing with conflicting views and suggesting how shared frames can be activated, fostered and strengthened.
... The aim of the workshops, presented to participants at the beginning, was to complement NE's peat pilots. In recent peatland policy strategy development in the UK, there has been a relatively high level of emphasis on stakeholder engagement in terms of the development of strategy, because of the recognized need to balance different policy priorities (climate, biodiversity, food security, and value for public money) while operating in a relative policy vacuum following Brexit, where European policy frameworks are coming to an end (Reed et al., 2020). ...
Participative strategy development serves to integrate the interests and perspectives of multiple stakeholders involved in today's complex environmental challenges, aiming at a better‐informed strategy for tackling these challenges, increased stakeholder ownership, and more democratic decision making. Prior research has observed inherent tensions between the need for participative strategy to be open to stakeholders' input and the need for closure and guidance. We extend this reasoning using a framing perspective. Our evidence from the development of the England Peat Action Plan suggests that tensions can emerge between the necessary ambiguous initial framing of intended change and the persistence of stakeholders' different framings of this change as well as perceptions of lacking knowledge, guidance, and control. We argue that strategy openness can thereby impede stakeholders' willingness and ability to change and counteract the strategy's aim for major transformation. Interactive spaces help mitigate the tensions and facilitate stakeholders' willingness and ability for change.
Related Articles
Brant, Hanna K., Nathan Myers, and Katherine L. Runge. 2017. “Promotion, Protection, and Entrepreneurship: Stakeholder Participation and Policy Change in the 21st Century Cures Initiative.” Politics & Policy 45(3): 372–404. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12201 .
Bryson, John R., Michael Taylor, and Peter W. Daniels. 2008. “Commercializing ‘Creative’ Expertise: Business and Professional Services and Regional Economic Development in the West Midlands, United Kingdom.” Politics & Policy 36(2): 306–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2008.00107.x .
Falkenström, Erica, and Stefan Svallfors. 2022. “The Knowledge–Management Complex: From Quality Registries to National Knowledge‐Driven Management in Swedish Health Care Governance.” Politics & Policy 50(5): 1053–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12497 .
... The framework supports the identification of areas of convergence or divergence between individual codes and permits consideration of the applicability of the approaches to different farming contexts. In this instance, illustrating questions about soil carbon markets from farmers and others around the world, we reflect on the UK farming sector where there is growing interest in carbon-positive farming practices and voluntary carbon markets in the context of a reduction in, and major changes to, publicly funded farming subsidy [13]. ...
Soils have the potential to sequester and store significant amounts of carbon, contributing towards climate change mitigation. Soil carbon markets are emerging to pay farmers for management changes that absorb atmospheric carbon, governed by codes that ensure eligibility, additionality and permanence whilst protecting against leakage and reversals. This paper presents the first global comparative analysis of farmland soil carbon codes, providing new insights into the range of approaches governing this global marketplace. To do this, the paper developed an analytical framework for the systematic comparison of codes which was used to identify commonalities and differences in approaches, methods, administration, commercialisation and operations for 12 publicly available codes from around the world. Codes used a range of mechanisms to manage additionality, uncertainty and risks, baselines, measurement, reporting and verification, auditing, resale of carbon units, bundling and stacking, stakeholder engagement and market integrity. The paper concludes by discussing existing approaches and codes that could be adapted for use in the UK and evaluates the need for an over-arching standard for soil carbon codes in the UK and internationally, to which existing codes and other schemes already generating soil carbon credits could be assessed and benchmarked.
... with non-substitutable shared, relational and intrinsic values that may only be partially reflected in indicators of total economic value, including use and non-use values (Kenter et al., 2015;Anderson et al., 2022). Management may benefit from further participatory and qualitative research (Reed et al., 2020) to present a more complete understanding of peatland values, which could help identify further value conflicts, improve legitimacy, and reduce the risk of policy backlashes . ...
The importance of peatlands for conservation and provision of public services has been well evidenced in the last years, especially in relation to their contribution to the net zero carbon emission agenda. However, little is known about the importance of recreation relative to conservation and their trade-offs. In this paper we address this knowledge gap by exploring the trade-offs between natural properties of peatlands and recreational infrastructures for different categories of recreationists (walkers, cyclists, anglers, and birdwatchers) of an open heather moors and peatlands landscape. We do so building on a series of management scenarios formulated through participatory methods and applying choice experiment related to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and UNESCO Global Geopark in the UK. Results show a high degree of heterogeneity in landscape preferences across different user groups. Recreationists had a higher appreciation for semi-natural habitats compared to pristine or restored peatland (e.g., land rewetting). Walkers and cyclists were more sensitive to changes in the availability of recreational facilities than to environmental quality, while anglers’ and birdwatchers’ preferences were more aligned with values promoted by restoration policies. Overall, our results point to a potential value conflict between benefits generated by conservation and the benefits valued most by some groups of recreationists. To maximise success conflicts like the one revealed here need to be considered in strategies that provide a central role for peatlands in net zero climate mitigation strategies.
... The framework supports the identification of areas of convergence or divergence between individual codes and permits consideration of the applicability of the approaches to different farming contexts. In this instance, illustrating questions about soil carbon markets from farmers and others around the world, we reflect on the UK farming sector where there is growing interest in carbon-positive farming practices and voluntary carbon markets in the context of a reduction in, and major changes to, publicly funded farming subsidy (Reed et al., 2020). ...
Soils have the potential to sequester and store significant amounts of carbon, contributing towards climate change mitigation. Soil carbon markets are now emerging to pay farmers for changes in land use or management that absorb carbon from the atmosphere, governed by codes that ensure additionality, permanence and non-leakage whilst protecting against unintentional reversals. This paper represents the first global comparative analysis of agricultural soil carbon codes, providing new insights into the wide range of approaches currently used to govern these emerging markets internationally. To do this, the paper first develops an analytical framework for the systematic comparison of codes, which could be applied to the analysis of codes in other land uses and habitats. This framework was then used to identify commonalities and differences in methods, projects, administration and commercialisation and associated code documents for 12 publicly available codes from the UK, France, Australia, USA and international bodies. Codes used a range of mechanisms to manage: additionality (including legal, adoption, financial viability and investment tests); uncertainty and risks around soil carbon sequestration (including minimum permanence periods, carbon buffers, contractual arrangements and/or insurance policies); leakage (including restriction of eligible practices and monitoring to subtract leakage from verified sequestration); baselines (including multi-year and variable buffers based on empirical data or models); measurement, reporting and verification methods (stipulating time intervals, methods, data sources and assessments of uncertainty); auditing; resale of carbon units; stakeholder engagement; and approaches to ensure market integrity (such as buyer checks). The paper concludes by discussing existing MRV methods and codes that could be adapted for use in the UK and evaluates the need for an over-arching standard for soil carbon codes in the UK, to which existing codes and other schemes already generating soil carbon credits could be assessed and benchmarked.
... There are also many potential barriers discouraging resource managers (for example, landowners, tenants and other businesses managing natural resources; the typical 'suppliers' whose actions shape ecosystem service delivery) from engaging in schemes. These include: poorly defined property rights, perceived (and real) risks of entering long-term contracts (including unknown impacts that managing for ecosystem services would have on land value), lack of clarity as to their eligibility for funding from public schemes after entering a privately 1 funded scheme, as well as more straightforward capacity issues relating to how they would implement and manage such schemes 3,13,20,21,22,23,24 . ...
Ecosystem markets are proliferating around the world in response to increasing demand for climate change mitigation and provision of other public goods. However, this may lead to perverse outcomes, for example where public funding crowds out private investment or different schemes create trade-offs between the ecosystem services they each target. The integration of ecosystem markets could address some of these issues but to date there have been few attempts to do this, and there is limited understanding of either the opportunities or barriers to such integration. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of eleven ecosystem markets in operation or close to market in Europe, based on qualitative analysis of 25 interviews, scheme documentation and two focus groups. Our results indicate three distinct types of markets operating from the regional to national scale, based on modes of operation, funding and outcomes: regional ecosystem markets, national carbon markets and green finance. The typology provides new insights into the operation of ecosystem markets in practice, which may challenge traditionally held notions of Payment for Ecosystem Services. Regional ecosystem markets, in particular, represent a departure from traditional models, by using a risk-based funding model and aggregating both supply and demand to overcome issues of free-riding, ecosystem service trade-offs and land manager engagement. Central to all types of market were trusted intermediaries, brokers and platforms to aggregate supply and demand, build trust and lower transaction costs. The paper proposes five options for integrating public and private funding for the provision of ecosystem services and proposes a framework for integrating national carbon markets and green finance with regional ecosystem markets. Such integration may significantly increase funding for regenerative agriculture and conservation across multiple habitats and services, whilst addressing issues of additionality and ecosystem service trade-offs between competing schemes.
Ecosystem markets are proliferating around the world in response to increasing demand for climate change mitigation and provision of other public goods. However, this may lead to perverse outcomes, for example where public funding crowds out private investment or different schemes create trade-offs between the ecosystem services they each target. The integration of ecosystem markets could address some of these issues but to date there have been few attempts to do this, and there is limited understanding of either the opportunities or barriers to such integration. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of eleven ecosystem markets in operation or close to market in Europe, based on qualitative analysis of 25 interviews, scheme documentation and two focus groups. Our results indicate three distinct types of markets operating from the regional to national scale, with different modes of operation, funding and outcomes: regional ecosystem markets, national carbon markets and green finance. The typology provides new insights into the operation of ecosystem markets in practice, which may challenge traditionally held notions of Payment for Ecosystem Services. Regional ecosystem markets, in particular, represent a departure from traditional models, by using a risk-based funding model and aggregating both supply and demand to overcome issues of free-riding, ecosystem service trade-offs and land manager engagement. Central to all types of market were trusted intermediaries, brokers and platforms to aggregate supply and demand, build trust and lower transaction costs. The paper outlines six options for blending public and private funding for the provision of ecosystem services and proposes a framework for integrating national carbon markets and green finance with regional ecosystem markets. Such integration may significantly increase funding for regenerative agriculture and conservation across multiple habitats and services, whilst addressing issues of additionality and ecosystem service trade-offs between multiple schemes.
The project: The Valuing Nature Programme's Peatland Tipping Points project is investigating how changes in climate and how we manage land might lead to long lasting changes, or "tipping points", in the benefits that peatlands provide to UK society. The aim is to identify signs of the potential for, and likelihood of, such changes and provide evidence about their likely economic and social impacts. This information will be used to develop options for policy and practice that can help prevent tipping points being reached and facilitate restoration and sustainable management of peatlands across the UK. Our approach: A stakeholder workshop was designed to create a platform for knowledge exchange and deliberation. Through storytelling participants explored values connected to the peatland of the North Pennines. Peatland Tipping Points project members gave feedback on the research results to inform further group discussions on the post-Brexit scenarios, developed in the first stakeholder workshop of the project. Participants then deliberated fair prices for agri-environmental policy options post-Brexit. The results: In their stories participants describe a close connection with the North Pennines peatlands through working and living in this landscape. They showed appreciation for its history and biodiversity of the area providing freedom and tranquillity. Participants named many different ecosystem services and goods provided by the surrounding peatlands like flood regulation and cultural identity during the scenario discussions. With regards to a new agri-environment scheme participant emphasised their wish for it to be locally co-designed and adaptive, and the importance of an extended toolkit to create more flexibility in options for peatland management. During the fair price discussion, one subgroup identified payments of £100/ha for restoration and maintenance of blanket bogs as fair. However, it was challenging to set clear fair prices because respondents felt more needed to be known about benefits to the public, and this should be an important informant of payment levels. New agri-environment scheme options were also elaborated like payments for woodland and native breed support or target predator control. Next steps: Findings from the workshop have already been reported to Defra and the team are working with Defra and Northumberland National Park to run a test and trial project for the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) later in 2019, where ideas from this workshop can be explored in greater depth. This in turn will feed into a peatland pilot scheme being designed by Natural England and Defra to look at synergies and trade-offs between public goods. This will report in in early 2020 and inform the English Peat Strategy and other related policy areas that are prioritising public goods post-Brexit. The findings will also be incorporated into an academic journal article.
This paper addresses central limitations of ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) by developing a novel approach to consideration of intrinsic values of nature. Intrinsic values are seen as bundled with values of ecosystem services and NCP within the Life Framework, an innovative, comprehensive and easy to communicate framework of values. Building on work by John O’Neill, values are conceived of as related to living with, from, in and as the world. These frames are related to but distinct from more formal ethical justifications of intrinsic, instrumental and relational values, which straddle the four Life Frames. Focusing on intrinsic values, we conceive these as ends without reference to humans as valuers, but which nonetheless can be articulated by people. We draw on more-than-human participatory research and post-normal science to promote the articulation and deliberation of perspectives and interests of the more-than-human world by an extended peer community. This clearly differentiates our approach from both rights-based intrinsic value and utilitarian existence value approaches, although it is inclusive of them. The approach is demonstrated by an elaborate integrated marine ecosystem valuation, where we investigate associations between intrinsic and relational values and the four Life frames. The Life Framework, operationalised through the post-normal, more-than-human participatory approach, operationalises articulated intrinsic values in a way that puts them on an equal footing with values of ecosystem services and NCP, providing an opportunity to bridge and reconcile these different types of value through deliberation. This enhances the recognition and procedural justice of valuation, while at the same time retaining the practical advantages that the ecosystem services framework brings.
Understandings of socially distributed expertise as being key to living, interpreting and intervening in the world, are increasingly used in development narratives, referring usually to knowledge sharing across multi-stakeholder partnerships. This movement towards the democratisation of expertise challenges the ideological claim of science to be the exclusive source of objective information, evidence and discovery on which informed decisions and technological developments should be based. But if we reject that claim, what are the implications for the way stakeholders learn, organise and transmit knowledge and skills, and resolve problems? And how do science and expertise come together in development narratives and practices? We address these questions through an examination of the changing relationship between scientific, professional and non-professional expertise in rural development. Firstly, we examine the evolution of models of rural development and knowledge generation over past decades and introduce the concept of vernacular expertise – the expertise that people have and develop that is place-based but crucially nourished by outside sources and agents and which underpins neo-endogenous development models. Secondly, by drawing empirically on qualitative research with rural advisory professionals who support farmer decision making we unpack the composition of vernacular expertise as a fusion of field/place generated and field/place focused knowledge, and consider how it may be better recognised and enhanced in development processes and policy agendas.
The paper demonstrates that the British Uplands have been influenced to a great extent by policy - for example, the planting of almost a million hectares of exotic conifers since the Second World War, and the extent of designated areas. Otherwise, climate change transcends policy and is locally important to coastal and high mountain habitats. The different policies affecting the Uplands, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, are described, as are the wide range of designations such as National Parks, which may have a stabilising effect in times of great change. A new trend has started in Scotland in the last 20 years of local initiatives, such as the community ownership of Eigg, however large landowners still dominate. An impact table is presented of the habitats that make up the Uplands and their links to driving forces, with potential changes described that are likely to take place under future policies such as Brexit. Dwarf shrub heath is the habitat affected by many management drivers, whereas habitats such as Inland Rock, are relatively stable but most likely to be affected by climate change.
Background: The use of research in policy settings is complex, unpredictable and influenced by a range of poorly understood social factors. This makes it difficult to plan for, facilitate and evaluate policy impacts arising from research.
Aims and objectives:
1. Propose and test tools for planning for and facilitating research impact, based on a new logic model combined with a novel approach to public/stakeholder analysis
2. Propose and test methods for establishing causal links between research and policy impacts
3. Use case study findings to provide new empirical insights into the social processes that mediate the generation of impact from research
Methods: Social Network Analysis, qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews and analysis of secondary data were used in a case study of peatland climate change research in Scottish Government policy.
Findings: Boundary organizations and centrally positioned, well-trusted individuals, were crucial to the development of a trusted body of research in which policy-makers were sufficiently confident as the basis for policy.
Discussion and conclusions: The non-linear social dynamics that characterize science-policy networks can be understood and evaluated. By using the tools described in this paper, researchers and other stakeholders can better plan, facilitate and evaluate research impact.
Background:
Implementation science has a core aim - to get evidence into practice. Early in the evidence-based medicine movement, this task was construed in linear terms, wherein the knowledge pipeline moved from evidence created in the laboratory through to clinical trials and, finally, via new tests, drugs, equipment, or procedures, into clinical practice. We now know that this straight-line thinking was naïve at best, and little more than an idealization, with multiple fractures appearing in the pipeline.
Discussion:
The knowledge pipeline derives from a mechanistic and linear approach to science, which, while delivering huge advances in medicine over the last two centuries, is limited in its application to complex social systems such as healthcare. Instead, complexity science, a theoretical approach to understanding interconnections among agents and how they give rise to emergent, dynamic, systems-level behaviors, represents an increasingly useful conceptual framework for change. Herein, we discuss what implementation science can learn from complexity science, and tease out some of the properties of healthcare systems that enable or constrain the goals we have for better, more effective, more evidence-based care. Two Australian examples, one largely top-down, predicated on applying new standards across the country, and the other largely bottom-up, adopting medical emergency teams in over 200 hospitals, provide empirical support for a complexity-informed approach to implementation. The key lessons are that change can be stimulated in many ways, but a triggering mechanism is needed, such as legislation or widespread stakeholder agreement; that feedback loops are crucial to continue change momentum; that extended sweeps of time are involved, typically much longer than believed at the outset; and that taking a systems-informed, complexity approach, having regard for existing networks and socio-technical characteristics, is beneficial.
Conclusion:
Construing healthcare as a complex adaptive system implies that getting evidence into routine practice through a step-by-step model is not feasible. Complexity science forces us to consider the dynamic properties of systems and the varying characteristics that are deeply enmeshed in social practices, whilst indicating that multiple forces, variables, and influences must be factored into any change process, and that unpredictability and uncertainty are normal properties of multi-part, intricate systems.
Environmental governance is characterized by complex dynamic issues where new knowledge is constantly emerging that can shape how we understand the system and what kinds of policies and strategies are most effective. As a result, targeted mechanisms to acquire, translate, and disseminate knowledge into new policies are critical for adaptive environmental governance. The scholarship on learning in environmental governance has exploded in the past two decades leading to new empirical and theoretical insights. However, lacking from this literature is an examination of how these insights can inform practice. Here we explore evidence from the scholarship studying learning in environmental governance that can inform practitioners who engage in and manage environmental planning and decision-making processes. Three key factors are drawn from the scholarship that may foster learning: face-to-face dialog that is open and ongoing; cross-scale linkages; and investments in institutional rules, norms, and shared strategies for intentional learning. We translate these findings into strategies for environmental governance practitioners and explore how to mitigate some of the factors that constrain learning across many governance contexts.
Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges better than more traditional scientific approaches. But definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. We propose a set of four general principles that underlie high- quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research. Using these principles, we offer practical guidance on how to engage in meaningful co-productive practices, and how to evaluate their quality and success.
