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Creating Regional Interdisciplinary Collaboration with Open Spaces at the People & Places Forum
Citation:
Williams, K., S. Mahmud, D. Augsburger, J. Hembd, M. Krausch, G. Epping Overholt, J. Schomberg, H. Sorensen, AND E. Sorensen. Creating Regional Interdisciplinary Collaboration with Open Spaces at the People & Places Forum. International Symposuim on Society and Natural Resource Management, Houghton, MI, June 22 - 26, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
N/A
Description:
Facilitating the integration of natural and social sciences in resource management presents a wide range of questions, including where to find collaborators and what knowledge collaborators can contribute. In order to begin to document answers to these questions, the Twin Ports-based People and Places Work Group coordinated a special gathering to bring together researchers and scholars from diverse fields to discuss environment-human research and collaboration opportunities. Hosted by the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve and the US EPA, the group invited over 150 individuals and participants from eight regional universities. The goals were to collect and document ongoing regional research and teaching activities, as well as research interests and expertise. The work group includes members from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, Minnesota Sea Grant, the Lake Superior Reserve and the US EPA. Utilizing Open Space meeting designs, the work group invited participants to brainstorm about potential collaborations, in general, and ecosystem services research, in particular. Our poster summarizes our process for building a regional-interdisciplinary network, documents our expertise, as well as outlines our initial outcomes and plans to continue to build momentum around the growing interest in collaboration.