Recognizing Barriers to Engagement and Communication

The scales at which invasive species impact the environment and society span from hyperlocal to international, involving a variety of stakeholders and policies across that continuum. Stakeholders vary widely in their levels of participation, education, and training, the nature of their respective interests and priorities, and their available resources. Parties in any given situation can even be at cross-purposes (García-Llorente et al. Reference García-Llorente, Martín-López, González, Alcorlo and Montes2008). For example, a local landowner, nearby national park, and state agency may all be engaged in mitigating current invasions and preventing future ones; however, their goals, resources, and constraints may or may not align. They may be framing and addressing “the problem” in very different ways. Important questions are thus: To what degree are actions communicated and coordinated within and among stakeholder groups? Are there shared barriers and solutions across stakeholder groups? What roles do researchers and policy makers play across this spectrum of scales and stakeholders? Given that the invasive species problem is vast, complex, and slated to worsen, are our “business as usual” practices efficacious? These were some of the broad questions workshop participants grappled with.

To address these questions, we conceptualized the invasive species problem as one that spans a research–education–policy–management continuum (Figure 1), similar to many other natural resource issues. This characterization was not meant to represent the “stages of invasion” or necessarily reflect a linear flow of knowledge to action; rather it was a starting point for discussing the broad categories of activities and stakeholders and how they interact. Participants started the day by identifying where they fit within the continuum, the relationships that work well, the relationships and connections that do not work well (and why), and gaps (and how they might be filled). There are certainly situations in which individuals may engage in multiple roles, but attendees were asked to assume the role that represented how they spend the majority of their efforts on invasive species. This was an individual exercise that participants completed on their own by placing Post-it notes on a printed banner of the continuum. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the importance of good research, education, policy development, and management were common themes. The need for more funding was also a common theme. These priorities largely reflect those of invasive species management plans (e.g., National Invasive Species Council 2016). The importance of better communication among stakeholders emerged and was increasingly recognized throughout the day as a key and often lacking element.

Figure 1

Diagram used to identify stakeholders, connections, tensions, and gaps. This schema was revisited throughout the day.

Participants reflected that the degree of stakeholder engagement across domains remains relatively low, yet potentially very important. Researchers regularly engage with other researchers at scientific conferences and through scholarly publications. Similarly, members of groups like the Virginia Native Plant Society regularly engage with one another and with the public to educate citizens and “pull weeds.” However, it is less common for stakeholders to interact outside their own groups; solutions may exist through identifying and addressing communication and coordination gaps (Larson Reference Larson2007). Participants overwhelmingly focused on problems at the interfaces between groups. Common mismatches and gaps identified included: lack of public education (e.g., “the public has no idea”); insufficient funding for research, management, education, and implementation of policy mandates; limited distribution of relevant research findings that are accessible to other stakeholder groups; lack of public–private partnerships; and the absence of an effective multistakeholder coalition. Coalition building was a consistent theme throughout the workshop, and one that had strong support from members of all groups. Participants were very vocal in their belief that, whether formal or informal, stronger “advocacy coalitions” composed of academic scientists, sympathetic officials, nonprofit organizations, and other concerned stakeholders could be very effective in raising the profile of invasive species issues and lobbying for informed action. Most participants felt this increased level of cooperation was the only pathway to developing effective invasive species solutions. Policy theory suggests that this approach may be viable for getting invasives on policy agendas (see, e.g., Sabatier Reference Sabatier1988).

Knowing Your Role—Self-Reflection across Diverse Participant Groups

Confronting the invasives crisis will require a concerted effort involving multiple stakeholders. Other workshops have successfully coalesced diverse perspectives from those working on weedy and invasive species to encourage self-reflection and identify paths forward for forging success (Murray et al. Reference Murray, Lehnhoff, Neve, Poggio and Webber2012). Despite the success of these workshops, the breadth of participants has been restricted largely to researchers (Ward et al. Reference Ward, Cousens, Bagavathiannan, Barney, Beckie, Busi, Davis, Dukes, Forcella, Freckleton, Gallandt, Hall, Jasieniuk, Lawton-Rauh, Lehnhoff, Liebman, Maxwell, Mesgaran, Murray, Neve, Nuñez, Pauchard, Queenborough and Webber2014), though in some cases a focus on transdisciplinarity involved input from social scientists (e.g., M. Bagavathiannan, personal communication). We were fortunate to have academics from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from science, technology, and society to weed science, in addition to broad stakeholder representation. Such broad transdisciplinary engagement is an important step in advancing to address complex challenges at the science–policy interface when the stakes are high, there is uncertainty, and information is contested and/or poorly understood (Maasen and Lieven Reference Maasen and Lieven2006). This workshop exposed the need for, and offered an opportunity to initiate, a transdisciplinary, multistakeholder effort. Future work can draw from best practices in collaborative governance, including the application of joint fact-finding methodologies to advance more effective boundary work at the science–policy interface (Bodin Reference Bodin2017; Matsuura and Schenk Reference Matsuura and Schenk2016).

The discussions and outcomes from such gatherings will, necessarily, be limited to the perspectives and biases of the stakeholder groups attending. Thus, we were interested in having members from each group self-reflect on the role they play in “confronting the crisis,” how the information they generate is used by other groups, and subsequently, how they expect others to use that information. Participants worked in like groups—researchers, educators, agency personnel/policy makers, NGO workers/managers—to assess where they fit among other stakeholders, the relationships that work well, the relationships and connections that do not work well (and why), and relationship gaps (and how they might be filled). This forced members of each group to reflect on: the role(s) they play and what they bring to the table, understanding and solutions-wise; how that work contributes to other groups’ progress; and what they need from other groups to be more effective in their own roles. Following this activity, it became clear that a wide diversity of barriers to success are perceived within groups, and those barriers were not always shared across groups. For example, members of the NGO workers/managers group identified their strengths as enthusiasm, organization, a knowledge of what works, and a deep sense of place. They felt largely marginalized from the other groups and considered themselves merely as consumers of information produced by others, despite being the group that has the most direct contact with invasive species. In contrast, researchers acknowledged the complexity of invasive species, recognized that much of their more fundamental work does not directly contribute to management or policy, and felt hamstrung by inadequate funding. Even many who self-identify as applied researchers, whose findings often more directly contribute toward management solutions, were still uncertain as to the most effective format(s) for communicating their findings with other stakeholders, and subsequently, whether those methods actually worked in the field at management scales. This finding underscores not only the need for stronger transdisciplinary collaboration previously discussed, but also for increased emphasis on effective science communication. Initiatives like Virginia Tech’s new Center for Communicating Science can help academic scientists and students translate their findings in ways that are more “salient, credible, and legitimate” for other stakeholders.

Following the within-group activity, new integrative groups were formed with at least one member from a group who self-identified as a “researcher,” “government agency personnel,” “NGO worker,” or “Extension specialist or educator.” The goal of this phase was to foster cross-sectorial dialogue, discuss how each group’s work and knowledge can be better integrated with others, and identify and break down barriers to action. This was a venue for very engaged and fruitful cross-stakeholder discussion, which is rarely available. In fact, the dominant feedback from participants was how useful it was to simply get this diversity of stakeholders in the same room and to communicate in small groups. Common outputs from the integrative groups included: admission that most groups do not expressly consider the needs of other groups when conducting their business; acknowledgment that groups differentially consider themselves producers (researchers) or consumers (managers, educators) of information; and widespread lack of engagement across groups.

In some cases, it was observed that the information is siloed, existing in one group but not being communicated effectively or at all. For example, managers want up-to-date invasive management information, which in many cases is published in peer-reviewed journals behind paywalls. This problem has improved recently with the development of multistakeholder information websites (e.g., invasive.org); the rise of open-access scientific journals (e.g., NeoBiota); user-contributed mass databases, including one devoted to species occurrences (e.g., eddmaps.com); and management-focused scientific publications (e.g., Invasive Plant Science and Management). However, Matzek et al. (Reference Matzek, Pujalet and Cresci2015) found that much of the invasion research is not meeting practitioner demands, despite being more easily accessible. Thus, stressing more bidirectional communication between researchers and practitioners to inform research questions and disseminate results is a critical next step in advancing more collaborative approaches to addressing the invasives crisis.

Participants identified one important potential solution to multidirectional communication gaps that could transform management: a database of management actions and their contexts and goals and outcomes. Land managers and NGO personnel described their roles as consuming and implementing information from researchers, which is often poorly communicated to them. However, many managers acknowledged that they rarely then communicate the results of their work back to researchers. Thus, researchers’ perception of management solutions is generally limited to their experimental systems and lacks information on the successes and failures across systems. As stated earlier, land managers possess knowledge about what works in practice, which could serve as an untapped resource for the refinement of future experimental designs, ultimately leading to effective solution development not to mention a valuable data cache ripe for mining.

Researchers can be key “linchpins” in conservation and management. Arlettaz et al. (Reference Arlettaz, Schaub, Fournier, Reichlin, Sierro, Watson and Braunisch2010) argue that researchers need a paradigm shift from simply working on ecological problems as purely academic endeavors to aiding in implementation of their findings—citing a successful example of bird conservation. Similarly, Lavoie and Brisson (Reference Lavoie and Brisson2015) argue that researchers should be directly educating land managers. This brings the latest information to practitioners, who urgently want this often “hidden” information, and closes a common communication gap that likely benefits the researchers as well. This is in fact the Extension model used at U.S. Land Grant Intuitions with over 150 years of success—direct connection between researchers and practitioners.