Factors Supporting Translational, Participatory Ecology Projects—Observations from Ten Years of Collaborative Research on Invasive Fish

Abstract

Translational participatory research for environmental management occupies a demanding space at the interface of societal needs and academic research. Projects in this space usually face the challenge of reconciling stakeholder involvement and real-world applicability with academic career requirements such as excellence in fundamental research and the attraction of substantial research funds. Here, we share our experiences from a 12-year translational participatory research initiative on the management of invasive gobies in central Europe. We describe the project, synthesize inputs, outputs, and outcomes, and summarize conditions and practices across political, administrative, societal, institutional, team, and individual levels that we found important and beneficial in our attempts to produce both academic and applied outcomes. Our impression is that an interaction of factors across these levels created windows of opportunity, and that the team constellation and setting allowed us to seize these opportunities for the sake of both scientific progress and societal impact. By reflecting from the perspective of a multidisciplinary group of natural scientists directly engaged in such a project, we aim to contribute a personal account to social science frameworks on translational, participatory, inter- and transdisciplinary research. Our retrospective potentially can inform policy makers, funders, and institutions who seek to create enabling environments for interface research, and is helpful to fellow natural scientists who want to prepare the ground for their own translational participatory research initiatives.

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