Science, Environment and Development Group

Back to main page for Occasional Speaker Series on Research Topics in Sustainable Development

Monday, 27 October 2003
Thinking, Talking, Doing: Integrated Research and the Professionalization of Science-Society Connections
Lorrae van Kerkhoff, Post-doctoral Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University
12:00-2:00 pm, Perkins Room (E-415), 4th Floor, Eliot Building, KSG (Map)
Lunch will be served

Biography:

Lorrae van Kerkhoff is a Post-doctoral fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University. She is examining the relationships between science, sustainability and human health. She completed her doctorate in 2002, where she investigated the concept of integrated research, and how it is being understood and implemented by environmental researchers. Prior to that she worked as a Research Associate with the Communication Research Institute of Australia. Her broad interests include the role of language in the development of new conceptual areas; informal learning as a part of professional research practice; and the interplay between large socio-political forces such as globalization and the knowledge economy on research oriented to public management, particularly in relation to sustainability.

Presentation slides:

van Kerkhoff, L. "Thinking, Talking, Doing: Integrated Research and the Professionalization of Science-Society Connections." PowerPoint presentation from Research Topics in Sustainable Development seminar, 27 October 2003, Center for International Development, Harvard University.

Background document:

van Kerkhoff, L. 2002. "Making a difference: Science, action and integrated environmental research." Unpublished thesis. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University, October 2002.

One of the great paradoxes of modern-day science is that the credibility it relies on to gain authority is derived in part from its independence from decision-makers. Yet that independence is also impotence: to make a difference in the world, researchers must work with those who can bring about changes in action. In environmental and natural resource management there is growing awareness that to have a say in environmental decision-making -- to make a difference -- researchers need to get involved. Consequently new models of science are emerging, many of which are variations on the idea of 'integrated research.' Yet there are currently no widely accepted understandings of what integrated research is, how it can be done effectively, or what might be the 'proper' role of science in an integrated approach? Increasing calls for integrated research in environmental and science policy (including research funding) mean that more and more researchers are confronting these questions.

This study aimed to clarify our understandings and practices of integrated research -- what it is and how to do it well -- by investigating how integrated environmental research is actually done. It involved in-depth study with two Australian environment sector research organisations with a mandate to do 'integrated research.' Both were Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs): the CRC for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management (the Coastal CRC); and the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting.

* Free Adobe Acrobat Reader required to open this document