Boundary organizations are non-traditional structures that can foster transdisciplinary relationships and help catalyze the exchange of ideas, trust, and ultimately the implementation of scientific evidence into policy. Here, we describe GE-21, a group composed of researchers and public servants interested in promoting biodiversity and ecosystem services in Geneva, Switzerland, as an example of such a structure. GE-21 developed into a de facto social experiment for fostering inter- and transdisciplinary science and promoting nature-based policies. The results of two ecosystem-based projects carried by GE-21 were rapidly adopted into policy. Here, we provide a post-hoc narrative based on reports, interviews, and observations that collectively assess the merits and drawbacks of such structures for mainstreaming ecosystem services.

We contend that the following five characteristics of this boundary organization may have facilitated its role as a conduit between academic research and public agencies:

1) projects proposing timely, relevant, and novel solutions to policy needs; 2) institutional support for applied interdisciplinary research; 3) a ‘safe space’ to express ideas and develop close relationships over time; 4) availability of high-quality spatial data at a relevant scale, and scientific capacity to treat them; 5) resources dedicated to communication.

边界组织是非传统的结构，可以促进跨学科的关系，并有助于促进思想交流，信任以及最终将科学证据落实到政策中。在这里，我们描述GE-21，它是由研究人员和对促进瑞士日内瓦的生物多样性和生态系统服务感兴趣的公务员组成的小组，作为这种结构的一个例子。GE-21变成了事实上的旨在促进跨学科和跨学科科学并促进基于自然的政策的社会实验。GE-21开展的两个基于生态系统的项目的结果被迅速采纳为政策。在这里，我们根据报告，访谈和观察结果提供事后叙述，共同评估此类结构将生态系统服务纳入主流的优缺点。

我们认为，这个边界组织的以下五个特征可能促进了它作为学术研究和公共机构之间的管道的作用：

1）为政策需求提出及时，相关和新颖解决方案的项目；2）为跨学科应用研究提供机构支持；3）一个“安全的空间”，用于表达思想并随着时间的推移建立紧密的关系；4）可获得相关规模的高质量空间数据，并具有处理这些数据的科学能力；5）专门用于交流的资源。