Connected Treescapes
Seeking to maximise interdisciplinary working...
As a partnership organisation, The Tree Council is all about working together across different projects, organisations and sectors. This collaborative approach brings many benefits, but working across organisational cultures and sector boundaries can also lead to challenges. As part of our role in the Connected Treescapes project, we helped organise and chair a panel event at the Future Treescapes Conference in Glasgow to delve into this topic. It was a great opportunity to consider a range of views from different sectors on how we can improve collaborative working to help our treescapes thrive.
The expert panel contained participants from a variety of organisations and backgrounds, including ecology, public art, social science and arboriculture. This diversity delivered interesting alternative perspectives when considering the opportunities and challenges of working across disciplines.
“I like the challenge and opinions that surprise me. We need new and different ideas.” Dr Heather Gilbert, National Forest
A key element of interdisciplinary working identified by the panel was the inclusion and representation of as many groups of people as possible, particularly when making decisions and carrying out research. Including diverse voices can help to challenge perceptions and entrenched ideas, and therefore help to develop more creative methods and outcomes. Ensuring that everyone on the team is open to learning and recognising areas of their own inexperience were raised by members of the panel as key steps to making the most of a collaborative approach. Similarly, recognising the importance of those who are impacted by the research that you are doing – for example, by including practitioners early on in the research process, and ensuring that they are compensated for the codesign contributions that they give.
Despite the unanimous agreement from the panel and audience that working across cultural and professional boundaries brings benefits, to both the project team and the outputs, there was also recognition of the challenges that come with this. One challenge mentioned was communication – different disciplines, sectors or organisations can have their own vocabulary, and translating can be difficult. Recognising this, and understanding that different groups will interpret words differently, can be a key part of a successful project. A similar challenge can arise when different groups involved in the project have different approaches, and different expectations of the outcome. Some panel members felt that this was particularly the case when working between the arts and sciences, with sciences being more process focused and requiring tangible outcomes, and the arts more incidental: creating and observing without having a preconception of the end product. This topic did however raise some lively debate, as there were many differing opinions!
“Holistic challenges require holistic solutions” Chris Knapman, (Arboricultural, Horticultural and Ecological Consultant)
Considering these challenges, we also heard from the panel on possible solutions to these issues, or actions that could be implemented to make working across these professional and cultural boundaries more successful. One of the key themes here was time - particularly around communicating different ideas or attitudes, as taking the time to understand the language others use and what they mean by certain vocabulary from the beginning of the project can really aid collaboration. Similarly, panel members agreed the importance of taking time to co-create the overall questions that are asked by a project with all those involved, so that there is a joint focus on finding out the answers. Finally, a key part of successfully working together is building relationships, and this also takes time and investment from the whole team.
Taking time is one of the seven principles of interdisciplinary working, according to a report by Professor Nicola Beamont – these principles were mentioned during the panel as a useful checklist to consider when embarking on projects which move beyond disciplinary and professional boundaries. Building this time into project plans, and encouraging funding bodies to recognise the importance of this as part of interdisciplinary research, could be useful future steps.
Another interesting solution provided by one of the panel was creating space to challenge and be challenged throughout a project. Allowing people to challenge their own (and others) perspectives and opinions can be the key to learning from each other. In addition, there was discussion around how challenging our understanding of terms like, “art”, “science” and “research” can help us to move beyond the confines of existing methodologies and power structures to create truly interdisciplinary approaches. Thinking in this way can also help us reframe what we value as research – as one panel member expressed “Story-telling is valued in many cultures, but can be ignored just because it’s not peer-reviewed!”
One method suggested to help create this space and overcome existing power dynamics was having site or place-based research meetings, that put everyone on a level playing field. This can help bring together the project team, as they are all in the role of visiting the site or location that is hosting them. Visits that involve walking or other activities were also suggested, as walking or talking side-by-side can help to facilitate more relaxed conversations and encourage contributions from individuals who may feel less empowered to speak up in formal settings. This can therefore help to build connections between different members of the group, and lead to more creative and inclusive problem solving.
Overall, the panel gave some really insightful and thought-provoking answers. It was a very enjoyable session, and many of the audience members also provided engaging comments and questions which added to the range of perspectives in the room. There were definitely some useful pointers and lessons learnt that we will be taking forward into our interdisciplinary projects in the future!
A big thank you to everyone on the panel (see below); George Murrell (Forest Research) for coordinating and organising the panel, and Bianca Ambrose-Oji (Forest Research) for additional support and guidance on bringing this together!
Panel members: Dr. Sandra Engstrom (University of Stirling), Chris Fremantle PhD (Gray’s School of Art), Dr. Heather Gilbert (National Forest), Professor Jane Hill (University of York), Chris Knapman (Arboricultural, Horticultural and Ecological Consultant), Jordan Rydlewski (Forest Research).
Charlotte Benham is The Tree Council’s Science & Research Projects Officer
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