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Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science

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Abstract

Natural resource researchers have long recognized the value of working closely with the managers and communities who depend on, steward, and impact ecosystems. These partnerships take various forms, including co-production and transdisciplinary research approaches, which integrate multiple knowledges in the design and implementation of research objectives, questions, methods, and desired outputs or outcomes. These collaborations raise important methodological and ethical challenges, because partnering with non-scientists can have real-world risks for people and ecosystems. The social sciences and biomedical research studies offer a suite of conceptual tools that enhance the quality, ethical outcomes, and effectiveness of research partnerships. For example, the ethical guidelines and regulations for human subjects research, following the Belmont Principles, help prevent harm and promote respectful treatment of research participants. However, science–management partnerships require an expanded set of ethical concepts to better capture the challenges of working with individuals, communities, organizations, and their associated ecosystems, as partners, rather than research subjects. We draw from our experiences in collaborative teams, and build upon the existing work of natural resources, environmental health, conservation and ecology, social science, and humanities scholars, to develop an expanded framework for ethical research partnership. This includes four principles: (1) appropriate representation, (2) self-determination, (3) reciprocity, and (4) deference, and two cross-cutting themes: (1) applications to humans and non-human actors, and (2) acquiring appropriate research skills. This framework is meant to stimulate important conversations about expanding ethics training and skills for researchers in all career-stages to improve partnerships and transdisciplinary natural resources research.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is a contribution from the Long-Term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network. LTAR is supported by the United States Department of Agriculture. It was also supported by the Northern Plains Climate Hub, Northwest Climate Hub, US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program through grant NA17OAR4310288 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at the University of Arizona, and the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (SW CASC) through Cooperative Agreement G18AC00320 from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and National Science Foundation IGERT program, award 0903479. The authors thank Kendra Wendel for assistance with manuscript development and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful recommendations, which strengthened the paper.

Author Contributions

All authors contributed to conceptual development and writing, and read and approved the final manuscript. GO contributed figure development, HW and AMM led manuscript editing.

Funding

US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service as part of the Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR) network, the Northern Plains Climate Hub, Northwest Climate Hub, US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program through grant NA17OAR4310288 with the Climate Assessment for the Southwest program at the University of Arizona, and the Southwest Climate Adaptation Science Center (SW CASC) through Cooperative Agreement G18AC00320 from the United States Geological Survey (USGS); National Science Foundation IGERT program, award 0903479.

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Correspondence to Hailey Wilmer.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Wilmer, H., Meadow, A.M., Brymer, A.B. et al. Expanded Ethical Principles for Research Partnership and Transdisciplinary Natural Resource Management Science. Environmental Management 68, 453–467 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01508-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01508-4

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