Actionable Science

The CASC network emphasizes supporting “actionable science.” While this term may describe a spectrum of efforts, our process is to encourage partnerships in research which lead to usable outcomes that can directly improve the ability of local resource managers and decision-makers to effect positive change in community adaptation to climate change.

What is Actionable Science?

Actionable science is research that is done with the needs of a specific end-user in mind, such as natural and cultural resource managers, policy professionals, community leaders, and other local decision makers. It represents a broad continuum of interaction styles between scientists and stakeholders, with traditional science methods at one end of the spectrum and knowledge co-production, a highly collaborative process with continuous engagement, at the other.

In all cases, though, engagement between researchers, stakeholders, and end users before, during, and after the research is key to ensuring the development of usable tools and information.

Actionable Science Stakeholder Engagement Process — Different research styles for conducting actionable science involve a variety of degrees, timings, and methods of stakeholder engagement. In traditional research, typically the primary interaction is a general release of the final products. In knowledge co-production, stakeholders are engaged throughout, via small in-person meetings, group field interactions, or large, full-network workshops, and final dissemination is really the implementation of results by those involved stakeholders. One can imagine various hybrid plans using these two methods as end points.

Why choose to do Actionable Science?

Climate change is anticipated to usher in unprecedented management challenges which will necessitate the best information and tools be made available to support adaptation. The intention of actionable science is to develop research with a strong potential to be used directly by stakeholders and decision makers. Actionable science methods provide the necessary access for users to build understanding, co-develop solutions, and test outputs alongside researchers, aiding the process of developing relevant, clear, and impactful science.

For more general information on Actionable Science, watch this brief video produced by the North Central CASC.

Our approach to Actionable Science

At PI-CASC, a central focus of our endeavors is to locate, support, and build upon existing local networks of natural and cultural resource managers. Long-term, in-person networks typically develop relationships that embody trust. Strong experiential bonds, spanning diverse knowledge forms, have enabled human cultures to adapt to change over centuries in remote island cultures across the Pacific region.

PI-CASC, therefore, builds upon these relationships by uniting manager and researcher networks through the collaborative actionable science process. Our overall goal is to intertwine the scientific process with specific biocultural landscapes to improve the research methods and the quality of questions addressed while increasing the utility and direct use of the results within local stakeholder networks.

For a deeper dive into our co-production process, explore the Manager Climate Corps program page.