Abstract
Decades of scholarship and practice highlight the need for scientific research that informs individuals on the front lines of decision-making. Funding organizations can play an important role in supporting useful and usable research by discussing the criteria and processes they use to guide the development and review of funded projects. However, practical examples of how funders can engage with grantees on the design of research efforts are not widely available. In this article, we respond to calls for more information in this area by presenting one example of evaluation criteria and guidance questions used by a philanthropic grant-making program that is focused on user-driven research. We describe this process through the lens of a funded research project that was designed to inform improvements in coastal habitat restoration. We hope that a closer look at an example of how to evaluate project ideas for their potential to provide critical information to decision-makers can be useful for other funders and researchers trying to produce useful and usable science.
Highlights
Research funders play a crucial role in supporting scientific evidence that can inform decisionmaking (Lyall et al, 2013; Trueblood et al, 2019; Arnott et al, 2020a; Cvitanovic et al, 2021; Gruby et al, 2021)
In response to the call for funders to share their approaches, in this article, we outline a grantmaking tool used by a marine science philanthropy program to guide the development and evaluation of research projects intended to inform decision-makers, managers and practitioners
We present grant criteria and guidance questions from the Lenfest Ocean Program (LOP), a grant-making project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, as a demonstration of how these tools can be used to collaborate with potential grantees to design useful and usable research projects
Summary
Research funders play a crucial role in supporting scientific evidence that can inform decisionmaking (Lyall et al, 2013; Trueblood et al, 2019; Arnott et al, 2020a; Cvitanovic et al, 2021; Gruby et al, 2021). Practitioners, and stakeholders is often critical to a project’s success because it helps position researchers to (1) identify and connect with new potential audiences; (2) adapt the research approach if unforeseen challenges or opportunities arise, or if the decision landscape shifts over time (e.g., management staff turnover and evolving management priorities, etc.); and (3) translate results in ways that align with management processes and resonate with diverse stakeholders Planning for this two-way dialogue can be accomplished through various channels, such as workshops, meetings, public webinars, communications materials (e.g., fact sheets and policy briefs), as well as one-on-one conversations with key authorities and staff (e.g., state or federal agencies, local community leaders, and NGOs). The grantee budgeted for open access fees for published work stemming from the field research
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