TY - JOUR
T1 - Scaling up co-produced climate-driven decision support tools for agriculture
AU - Lu, Junyu
AU - Lemos, Maria Carmen
AU - Koundinya, Vikram
AU - Prokopy, Linda S.
N1 - Funding Information: For the past few decades, a rich scholarship has developed on potential to quickly broaden the number of those involved, there how to co-produce knowledge to support sustainability goals1–4. are questions about whether the valued traits of co-production such The rapidly evolving research on co-production has focused on as trust building, equity and ownership can be achieved2. Second, both theoretical and practical issues, including approaches, oppor-the impact of co-production can accelerate and scale up through tunities and barriers for producing actionable knowledge2,5,6; design aggregation, that is, when knowledge is co-produced between sci-and implementation of interventions in different fields to increase entists and individuals who make decisions that affect large num-the effectiveness of co-production7–9; principles and potential pit-bers of people, such as policy makers, natural-resource managers falls of co-production1,10,11 and, more recently, how to evaluate co-and city planners20. Third, co-produced knowledge can scale up as production12. Increasingly, proponents of co-production as a means it disseminates beyond the co-production process to reach poten-to solve sustainability problems have argued that the co-creation of tial users who were not initially involved. We aim at contributing knowledge through meaningful engagement between scientists and towards deeper understanding of this last path. stakeholders furthers knowledge usability13,14. The rationale is that In this study, we empirically explore how outreach engagement by countering the ‘loading dock’ linear model of knowledge cre-and marketing campaigns may have scaled up co-produced knowl-ation from science to society, co-production increases knowledge fit edge to support farming decision making in the context of climate to users’ needs, which, in turn, increases knowledge use15,16. variability and change. We particularly examine three aspects of However, most of the evidence that co-production increases knowledge usability and dissemination: awareness, use and will-knowledge use among those who participate has stemmed from ingness to recommend to others. We focus on the Useful to Usable in-depth case studies with a small number of stakeholders or col-(U2U) project, a six-year transdisciplinary research and extension laborators4. Recent scholarship reviewing the outcomes of 21 co-project funded by the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) production projects across different areas of knowledge found that National Institute for Food and Agriculture7,21. As farms in the there is no actual evidence of either use or non-use17. Moreover, Midwestern United States have become larger and more industri-despite normative assumptions that co-produced knowledge might alized over time, farmers have increasingly depended on external benefit the multitude of users making critical decisions to foster advisers for technical assistance22. These advisers include both sustainability, how co-produced knowledge disseminates beyond public-sector employees, such as extension educators and govern-the initial co-production process remains a seminal unexamined ment agency staffs, and private-sector groups and individuals23,24. research question. The main goal of U2U was to enhance the usability and uptake of In theory, there are at least three paths to scale up co-produc-weather and climate information by farmers and agricultural advis-tion and its impact. First, we can scale up co-production itself by ers in the Midwestern United States by co-producing web-based designing and implementing co-production processes that include climate-driven decision support tools (C-DSTs)7,21. a larger number of collaborators such as communities of practice, U2U’s co-production of knowledge and engagement approach research participants (for example, crowdsourcing), boundary differed from many co-production processes in three main ways. organizations and knowledge brokers18,19. While this model has the First, U2U involved a highly transdisciplinary design that involved Funding Information: This research was part of ‘Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers’ and was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68002-30220 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, project website: http:// www.AgClimate4U.org. The U2U project team was composed of faculty, staff and students from the following land grant and other universities: Purdue University, Iowa State University, Michigan State University, South Dakota State University, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Wisconsin. M.C.L. was also supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office (grant no. Funding Information: This research was part of ?Useful to Usable (U2U): Transforming Climate Variability and Change Information for Cereal Crop Producers? and was supported by Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grant no. 2011-68002-30220 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, project website: http://www.AgClimate4U.org. The U2U project team was composed of faculty, staff and students from the following land grant and other universities: Purdue University, Iowa State University, Michigan State University, South Dakota State University, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Wisconsin. M.C.L. was also supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office (grant no. NA15OAR4310148). We also thank L. Esman (Department of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University) for editorial assistance and K. Paine for graphic design assistance. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - There is growing belief that the co-production of knowledge between academics and non-academics is critical to address sustainability problems. Yet, little is known about what happens after co-production and whether and how co-produced knowledge scales up. This article focuses on climate-driven decision support tools co-produced by researchers, farmers and agricultural advisers in the US Midwest. Through two surveys (N = 5,393) with farmers and agricultural advisers, it examines how engagement and marketing campaigns to disseminate the tools influenced their use. Here we find that beyond the highly iterative co-production process, other forms of user interaction such as outreach engagement and marketing campaigns are critical to scale up the impact of co-produced knowledge. Positively, we also show that most surveyed farmers and advisers who were not involved in the engagement phase reported having their needs met by the co-produced tools and were using, considering using or willing to recommend the climate-driven decision support tools. Hence, while co-production alone does not guarantee dissemination, it does increase knowledge fit and use. Dissemination for mass use, however, might require a committed effort from researchers and funders to promote and evaluate use post co-production to better understand societal impact and the role of co-produced knowledge in addressing sustainability problems.
AB - There is growing belief that the co-production of knowledge between academics and non-academics is critical to address sustainability problems. Yet, little is known about what happens after co-production and whether and how co-produced knowledge scales up. This article focuses on climate-driven decision support tools co-produced by researchers, farmers and agricultural advisers in the US Midwest. Through two surveys (N = 5,393) with farmers and agricultural advisers, it examines how engagement and marketing campaigns to disseminate the tools influenced their use. Here we find that beyond the highly iterative co-production process, other forms of user interaction such as outreach engagement and marketing campaigns are critical to scale up the impact of co-produced knowledge. Positively, we also show that most surveyed farmers and advisers who were not involved in the engagement phase reported having their needs met by the co-produced tools and were using, considering using or willing to recommend the climate-driven decision support tools. Hence, while co-production alone does not guarantee dissemination, it does increase knowledge fit and use. Dissemination for mass use, however, might require a committed effort from researchers and funders to promote and evaluate use post co-production to better understand societal impact and the role of co-produced knowledge in addressing sustainability problems.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85120967670&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1038/s41893-021-00825-0
DO - 10.1038/s41893-021-00825-0
M3 - Article
SN - 2398-9629
VL - 5
SP - 254
EP - 262
JO - Nature Sustainability
JF - Nature Sustainability
IS - 3
ER -