title: Designing environmental research for impact.
abstract: Transdisciplinary research, involving close collaboration between researchers and the users of research, has been a feature of environmental problem solving for several decades, often spurred by the need to find negotiated outcomes to intractable problems. In 2005, the Australian government allocated funding to its environment portfolio for public good research, which resulted in consecutive four-year programmes (Commonwealth Environmental Research Facilities, National Environmental Research Program). In April 2014, representatives of the funders, researchers and research users associated with these programmes met to reflect on eight years of experience with these collaborative research models. This structured reflection concluded that successful multi-institutional transdisciplinary research is necessarily a joint enterprise between funding agencies, researchers and the end users of research. The design and governance of research programmes need to explicitly recognise shared accountabilities among the participants, while respecting the different perspectives of each group. Experience shows that traditional incentive systems for academic researchers, current trends in public sector management, and loose organisation of many end users, work against sustained transdisciplinary research on intractable problems, which require continuity and adaptive learning by all three parties. The likelihood of research influencing and improving environmental policy and management is maximised when researchers, funders and research users have shared goals; there is sufficient continuity of personnel to build trust and sustain dialogue throughout the research process from issue scoping to application of findings; and there is sufficient flexibility in the funding, structure and operation of transdisciplinary research initiatives to enable the enterprise to assimilate and respond to new knowledge and situations.
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Ellengowan Drive, Darwin 0909, Australia.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 141, Hobart 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Lefroy
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Adelaide, North Terrace, SA 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Caddy-Retalic
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, Castray Esplanade, Hobart 7001, Australia; Institute for Marine and Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bax
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB 3, Townsville 4810, Australia.
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Doherty
authors.affiliation: Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Ellengowan Drive, Darwin 0909, Australia.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Douglas
authors.affiliation: Department of the Environment, Australian Government, GPO Box 787, Canberra 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4067, Australia.
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Possingham
authors.affiliation: Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4067, Australia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Specht
authors.affiliation: Marine Ecosystem Policy Advisers, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tarte
authors.affiliation: Department of the Environment, Australian Government, GPO Box 787, Canberra 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004463:Ecology; D012106:Research
keywords: Collaborative; Flexible; Knowledge brokering; Knowledge management; Multi-institutional; Participatory; Research strategy; Transdisciplinary