We are faced with many ‘wicked’ environmental problems —from the climate crisis to biodiversity declines to emerging infectious diseases— which are interrelated and go beyond traditional scientific fields. To tackle these challenges, scientists need to engage with those outside their field or profession. However, scientists are generally poorly-equipped to do this and there are few places for this to happen within institutions. Going further, when required to speak to broad audiences about their work, a lack of interdisciplinary context often compounds the difficulty to engage with the public or policy-makers. Research that could have broader application or appeal to more than a small field of experts often gets misunderstood or overlooked because of this. Knowledge translation is already an identified gap in many research institutes. Please navigate the Transdisciplinary Conversations menu to find the various initiatives we have been supporting on this theme. If you would like to plan a joint activity with us, please email us at info.gier@uoguelph.ca.
Banner photo credit: Yip Vick on Unsplash.
