Overcoming barriers to transfer of scientific knowledge: integrating biotelemetry into fisheries management in the Laurentian Great Lakes

The science–practice divide is a stubborn problem in environmental management. Existing research tells us that a range of factors affects the uptake of new science into practice and policy, including socio-organizational, individual, and evaluative variables. Here, we seek to understand the variables influencing the uptake of biotelemetry-derived information in the Laurentian Great Lakes fishery management system. To do so, we used semi-structured telephone interviews (n = 50) to capture the views of managers, researchers, and assessment biologists affiliated with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC). Our results suggest that biotelemetry offers epistemological value (generating new and important information), but faces barriers tied to perceptions concerning practicalities of the technology, such as its cost. The practical limitations facing the use of biotelemetry evidence were more specific and potentially more easily resolved than the entrenched individual and socio-organizational challenges of using types of knowledge other than biotelemetry. The persistence of the science–practice divide was evident in our findings. Formal entities and boundary organizations such as the GLFC and inter-sectoral networks that promote interactions, meetings, and connections among researchers and practitioners can help overcome this gap. The Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS) network can play a boundary role in facilitating biotelemetry science transfer by focusing on overcoming its evaluative limitations (e.g., costs, technological limitations). Further, the GLFC and GLATOS are well positioned to play a greater role in science transfer by facilitating interactions among scientists and practitioners to help reconcile differences in perceptions.