RESEARCH PROJECT
Social Capital and the Transfer of Science-based Knowledge across Agency Boundaries: The case of Climate Change
| Project Summary |
Science-based knowledge is critical to addressing some of society's most pressing environmental challenges such as climate change. Consequently, governments world-wide invest a substantial amount of public funding into scientific research. By fostering significant advances in economic, social and ecological sustainability, government investment in scientific research has the potential to ensurethe ongoing prosperity of society. However, in order to achieve this potential, the knowledge created by scientific research must be transferred and integrated across a number of institutional boundaries, including disciplinary, professional, sector, organizational and geographic boundaries. Moreover, in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment, processes for transferring and integrating science based knowledge must be responsive to changing problems and tasks.
Natural resource and environmental agencies are charged with transferring and integrating science based knowledge across institutional boundaries so that they can work together to address environmental challenges. Unfortunately, their hierarchical organizational design is not well suited to this task, particularly in relation to horizontal transfer and integration of knowledge and responsiveness to change. In recognition of this, Governments have supported the development of non hierarchical mechanisms such as “collaborative networks” and “boundary-less” organizations. However, in order to be effective, such mechanisms must be reinforced by sufficient social capital to enable the people and organizations participating in them to meet the accountability and efficiency requirements of the hierarchical bureaucracy while providing them with the flexibility they need to collaboratively respond to changing problems and tasks.Social capital is the advantage that an individual or group receives from features of social relationships such as trust, networks and norms.
The objectives in this research are to:
1) Measure the social capital that is present among agencies charged with working together to address a climate change in agencies in the province of British Columbia (Canada) and the state of Victoria (Australia).
2) Measure the transfer of scientific knowledge among staff in these agencies.
3) Map the patterns of social capital and the transfer of science-based knowledge among these agencies and examine the relationships between them.
4) Explore strategies for enhancing the transfer of science-based knowledge that are sensitive to both the accountability requirements of government agencies and the need to be responsive to changing problems and tasks.
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