Natasha Mølgaard about integrating social sciences into environmental research & emerging trends
Natasha Mølgaard (AU)
“It doesn’t matter that it’s an ideal solution if it can’t be applied in the real world.”
What challenges do you encounter when working at international projects?
“In international projects you have the issue that people are all over the world and work in different places. This makes it harder to work together when you can't regularly interact in-person.
This can be overcome by sustained engagement through interviews, workshops, and follow-up activities that foster a sense of contribution and continuity. These things can ensure that everyone sees the tangible outcomes from their involvement and this enhances the overall process.”
What are the key objectives of your collaboration with James H. Williams and how does it enhance the SYBERAC project?
“We basically collaborate on everything and delegate tasks between us. Together we are working on this approach to interlink everything and to have this strong approach in the engagement and connecting with other research projects from SYBERAC.
Working in this interdisciplinary field dominated by natural and technical sciences can help to develop strategies for integrating social science and humanities perspectives into these domains.”
What are your role-specific tasks within the project?
“I come from a bit of a different background than most of the people in the project. My role has a lot to do with stakeholder engagement, as well as aligning the objectives between the various case studies and within the project. So the case studies are very focused on the local or national area, and I am trying to connect that with the EU-level in work package 1.”
How do you envision the project’s outcomes influencing your field of work or research area?
“I can’t point out one single output that stands out. It’s more about the process and methodology that significantly contribute to achieving meaningful and impactful outcomes. So I would say that this connecting with people from different sectors and different levels, and this experience of collaboration between project members and stakeholders and building that sort of synergy within and external to the project is a significant contribution.
I see this having a big impact as compared to just having knowledge and results go out into the void, which is sometimes the case when the focus is only placed on research.”
“Integrating social sciences enriches outcomes, strengthens methods, and fosters interdisciplinary collaboration by addressing stakeholder needs and creating new opportunities.”
What role does social science research play in bridging the gap between environmental science and public policy or practice?
“If we look at natural sciences they're very good at finding the solutions and the components that need to be addressed to improve the environmental factors. However, what we have seen in the past is that it hasn't really been applied within policy-making. Here social sciences can foster a dialogue between the different perspectives and support their alignment, by always taking the environmental- and socio-political context into account.”
How can social science tools be integrated with environmental science research to improve understanding and decision-making?
“I think they enable a focus on the people and it allows for ownership and that means a higher optic of the results. If the people who are supposed to implement something are not on board and are not part of the process, it might not fit their specific context. It doesn't matter that it's an ideal solution if no one is actually able to pick it up.”
What are some trends emerging in social science research within environmental science?
“I think just the fact that there is value placed on collaboration and interdisciplinarity. It’s a trend that there is space created for projects like SYBERAC where multiple perspectives and fields come together. I think that, on the side of social sciences and the side of natural science, it has been realized that one of the branches can't solve everything on its own, so interdisciplinarity is beneficial to increase the value of outcomes.”
