PECOS: 150 Person-years Experience In Teaching,Learning And Conducting Interdisciplinary ResearchOn Ecosystem Sustainability

Abstract

The need for interdisciplinary communication in ecosystem research and sustainable development is a recurring theme in policy and landscape management. Yet understanding is limited about the entities, conditions and processes that enable, or inhibit interdisciplinarity. We therefore submit a distillation and analysis of the experience of a team of 60 researchers involved for 3 years in an interdisciplinary study of ecosystem sustainability. PECOS (Prairie Ecosystem Sustainability Study) is Saskatchewan's response to perceived needs for: (a) a holistic and integrated understanding of the semi-arid prairie agroecosystem and of the factors determining its sustainability; and (b) graduate students trained in thinking and working across disciplinary and cultural boundaries. Funded by Canada's EcoResearch/ TriCouncil Program, PECOS is designed and executed by researchers at the Universities of Saskatchewan and Regina, residents of the study area, and collaborating government scientists. PECOS' designers concluded it was essential to: (a) include human interest and action as integral components of the ecosystem; (b) incorporate multiple world views, research paradigms and methods; (c) involve senior researchers and graduate students from the natural, health and social sciences, humanities, and engineering; (d) focus on a common geographic area; and (e) involve residents of that area, their knowledge and their experience, in all phases of the research. Communication and coordination were served by a management structure, a dedicated e-mail network, newsletters, discussion papers, a shared study area, rich GIS and other shared PECOS databases, and a wwwsite. PECOS' evolution added: (a) weekly multidisciplinary seminars; (b) a graduate course in interdisciplinarity; (c) meetings and workshops organized by the PECOS student body; and (d) shared research sites, field stations, travel and events in the study area. Some of PECOS' goals have been achieved. The challenge now is to complete all theses, produce (through further integrative action) both scholarly and popular works on this ecosystem and its sustainability, and extract sound support for decision-making in policy and landscape management. We are critically examining what enables and what inhibits interdisciplinary communication, and seeking to transfer our experiences. Transactions on Ecology and the Environment vol 16, © 1997 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541