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Research funders can play an important role in supporting the integration of marine science into policy and practice to enable evidence-informed decision-making. However, to date, there is a paucity of guidance available to help research funders understand the specific actions they can take to support knowledge exchange among the researchers that they fund and relevant stakeholders, particularly within marine contexts. This Brief Research Report aims to begin to fill this gap through an in-depth case study of the Lenfest Ocean Program (LOP). Specifically, through qualitative interviews with 32 participants across eight LOP funded research projects (i.e., case studies) we sought to: (i) understand the types of impacts that have resulted from the LOP funded research, (ii) determine which activities undertaken by the LOP enabled funded research projects to achieve these impacts, and (iii) synthesize findings to articulate the core lessons that have emerged from our examination of these research projects. Results show that the concept of “research impact” is complex and can be interpreted in a number of ways including: (i) raising awareness of research among end-users, (ii) development and expansion of social networks, (iii) the provision of information to decision-makers, (iv) the development of decision-support tools, and (v) a direct contribution to policy change. We highlight the ways by which the LOP has supported the attainment of these impacts, as well as 10 general considerations that research funders should consider when seeking to enhance the impact of the research that they fund on marine policy and practice.

Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when 'co-produced' by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges better than more traditional scientific approaches. But definitions of knowledge co-production are diverse and often contradictory. We propose a set of four general principles that underlie high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability research. Using these principles, we offer practical guidance on how to engage in meaningful co-productive practices, and how to evaluate their quality and success. Research addressing sustainability issues is more effective if 'co-produced' by academics and non-academics, but definitions of co-production vary. This Perspective presents four knowledge co-production principles for sustainability research and guides on how to engage in co-productive practices.

Literature on co-production is booming. Yet, most literature is aspirational and methodological in nature, focusing on why co-production is important for environmental governance and knowledge production and how it should be done, and does not address the question why these processes often fail to achieve stated objectives of empowerment and societal transformation. In this review, we address this gap by reviewing literature on the political and power dimensions of co-production. Our review shows how depoliticization dynamics in co-production reinforce rather than mitigate existing unequal power relations and how they prevent wider societal transformation from taking place. Drawing on literature about participation, deliberative governance, and democracy, the review concludes by emphasizing the importance of (re)politicizing co-production by allowing for pluralism and for the contestation of knowledge.

Neoliberal ideology increasingly underscores many mainstream efforts to conserve biodiversity. This research explores this convergence through an in-depth case study of a privately owned park located in Chilean Patagonia. In two complementary chapters, I assess the social and cultural impacts of the project, and examine the role of discourse in the process of communicating and constructing the park. In the first chapter I draw from interview data collected from September through December of 2016 and explore the perspectives of local people with a variety of relationships to the project. In the second I employ a critical discourse analysis of park promotional materials to examine ways in which representations of the project highlight the heroic role of Northern actors while concealing the projects relationship to neoliberal capitalism. Through my analysis, I show that the project has precipitated a host of deleterious social impacts: local people expressed feelings of loss, powerlessness, and concern that their way of life is being eroded by outside forces. Conjoined, the two chapters display how the complex experiences of local people are rendered illegible in discourses produced for global audiences. I argue that apparently matter-of-fact park discourses extend the legitimation of capitalist modes of conservation, and play a critical role in silencing the dissent of local people.

Selecting a framework for assessing research impact can be difficult, especially for interdisciplinary studies and research in fields that do not have established forms impact assessment. In this post, Elena Louder, Carina Wyborn, Christopher Cvitanovic, Angela T. Bednarek, outline four principles for researchers designing impact assessment criteria for their work and suggest how a closer appreciation of how assessment frameworks are dependent on particular forms of knowledge production and dissemination is critical to making the right choice.