Abstract
Graduate students can face difficulties collaborating across disciplines and outside of academia. Stakeholder-engaged research (i.e., research involving partners outside of academia) presents challenges for developing a project, finding collaborators, and co-creating knowledge. Past reflections on how to navigate stakeholder-engaged research assume a faculty member leads the project and do not often address implementation from a student-led approach. In this paper, we provide insight on our team science process from an applied, graduate student perspective. We reflect on the formation of our student team and the implementation of a tourism planning research project with community partners. We discuss challenges and focus on practical tips to overcome these challenges. Specifically, we include reflections on co-developing a research project, building authentic partnerships, negotiating power dynamics, and the role of institutional support. Lessons learned from this project can guide other graduate student teams working with stakeholders, as well as faculty seeking to train graduate students in stakeholder-engaged research.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Alf Anderson, Michael Boland, Stephanie Clement, Rich MacDonald, and Abe Miller-Rushing. We would also like to thank to following faculty at the University of Maine: Sandra De Urioste-Stone, Daniel Hayes, Sabrina Morano, Sarah Nelson, Parinaz Rahimzadeh-Bajgiran, and Jay Wason.
Funding
This work was funded by the University of Maine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. Additional funding to support student researchers came from the NSF-NRT Conservation Science Program (grant 1828466), NOAA (grant NA17OAR4310249), USDA NIFA (McIntire-Stennis project number ME0-42017), the USDA-AFRI Agriculture and Natural Resources Science for Climate Variability and Change (AFRI ANRCVC) Challenge Area Program (grant 2018–69002-27933), and the UMaine Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences. This research was approved by the University of Maine Protection for Human Subjects Review Board (application # 2021–02-08).
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This study was approved by the University of Maine IRB (application # 2021–02-08).
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Horne, L., Soucy, A., DiMatteo-LePape, A. et al. Reflections of a graduate student team on developing and implementing a transdisciplinary research project: Challenges, recommendations, and lessons learned. Climatic Change 177, 64 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03715-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03715-4