Advancing Good Practices in Building Interdisciplinary: Moving towards User-oriented Science (3101) Marcelo Saguier, UNSAM-CONCET/FLACSO Andrea K. Gerlak, University of Arizona

Outline Project goals and objectives Scientific findings Science-policy-society linkages

Project Goals & Objectives

Project Goal To reflect on and improve the current practices of knowledge generation, mobilization and use with respect to the social and environmental impacts of hydropower development and water-energy futures in South America

Uruguay River History of cooperation and conflict Hydropower development Growing social resistance Garabí-Panambi hydroelectric complex

Project Objectives To build an interdisciplinary socio-scientific network between natural scientists, social scientists, policy-makers and social actors involved in water politics as governance mechanisms and practices To identify and assess ways of articulating interactions between public officials, natural sciences experts, social scientist and social actors as governance processes to generate knowledge To provide practical guidance and good practices toward improving the generation and mobilization of knowledge on interdisciplinary problem-and-solution-oriented projects Marcelo – do we want to tweak these at all?

Scientific Findings

Hydroenergy and Climate Change Workshop Buenos Aires, July 2014 Academic researchers, public water officials, and representatives of NGOs To identify and frame global change research questions in the context of hydropower development and water-energy futures in South America

Crafting an Action Agenda for the Uruguay River Basin Workshop Itaipu, May 2016 Academic researchers and representatives of NGOs To generate knowledge around science and governance issues in basin to be communicated with decision-makers and relevant actors Collaborated with International Seminar on Environment and Development, with Focus on Water, Energy and Food Nexus, organized by Itaipú Technological Park and International Hydroinformatics Center – CIH/UNESCO

Infrastructure & Investments for Sustainable Development in the La Plata River Basin Workshop Buenos Aires, August 2016 Academic researchers, public water officials, and representatives of NGOs To identify and reflect on the policy and infrastructure projects agendas in the basin in terms of their relations with the driving actors, recurring practices and implications for sustainable development goals

Saguier, Marcelo (2018). ‘Transboundary water governance in South America’. In Pia Riggirozzi & Christopher Wylde, eds., Handbook of South American Governance, Routledge. “Regionalism and Transboundary Basins in South America: The case of the Uruguay River Basin” In preparation, Global Environmental Politics

An interdisciplinary action agenda for the Uruguay River Basin interdisciplinary research process focused on the exploration of set of interactions between biophysical and social processes infrastructure interventions ecological degradation basin governance set of ten policy interventions To develop an interdisciplinary agenda for action can help identify opportunities for cooperative management of the Uruguay River Basin Work collaboratively in small teams to articulate the scientific and policy issues around three key “priority” dimensions Science: What are the project's most relevant scientific results including major findings, developments, or conclusions (both positive and negative)? What is their disciplinary impact? What outcomes wouldn’t have been achieved but through interdisciplinarity? fragmentation in the conception of a basin that is produced by the epistemological and methodological boundaries set by scientific research that hinders interdisciplinary research needed to approach the basin as an integrated whole Under review, Water International

Dam development, assessments & governance examine the rise of dam development and subsequent environmental and social impacts, and the mobilization of civil society and environment groups that have developed in response in South America articulate how environmental and social impact assessments in the region have largely failed these processes rest on larger flawed governance practices that fail to appropriately engage stakeholders and incorporate environmental and social concerns In preparation, Ambio

Science-policy-society Linkages

Recipients of the project´s science-policy efforts Social movement organizations, NGOs, government agencies, donors, river basin organizations Researchers in universities working on specific issues and dimensions of the Uruguay River Basin

What kind of science-policy-society link was developed? An interdisciplinary knowledge production process: Alignment of research agendas and perspectives among the project participants Compiling and sharing information. Collectively developing a common interpretative interdisciplinary framework to frame the basin as a socio-ecological system Sustained engagements through a series of interdisciplinary workshops and collective production of papers

Results and impacts Transdisciplinary Research network for the La Plata River Basin 8 universities, 3 social organizations and links with several groups Legitimacy and credibility of otherwise disconnected actions/actors Identify, review and re-articulate data on the URB as part of a socio-ecological system framework narrative centered on the socio-ecological interdependencies of the URB are crisscrossed by economic, political and social interests operating at the local and translational levels.

Lessons learned There is great need for establishing the importance of interdisciplinary work Research agenda setting and network building is central at this stage main challenge is building interdisciplinary concepts/visions Be realistic of what interdisciplinary researchers can and cannot do not politicians, not social activists or business lobbyists but framers Universities and national science bodies are key to communicating and engaging the broader public in policy-relevant science research The role of education and research in course materials and subjects, thesis topics and methodological approaches

More lessons learned A fragmented view of basins: jurisdictional; society-nature disconnections and disciplinary perspectives Uncoordinated institutional spaces with policy relevant competence over the basin: RBOs, ministries and provincial authorities, hydroelectric bodies, weak university cooperation on basin issues Polarized positions with respect certain basin policy issues: disconnection between socio-environmental issues/social demands from institutional policy spaces Socio-environmental issues tend to be localized with little up-scaling to international (Mercosur) and transnational levels The politicization of the basin is not being mediated political by traditional political actors

Future uptake and opportunities Importance of consolidating interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary research networks Networks as capillary networks to intersect different policy domains by mainstreaming a common interpretative framework that can mobilize policy and public processes Research networks that interconnect the fragemented policy spaces both nationally and internationally Articulate academic research and communication actions as an ongoing top-down & bottom-up process with the social actors that inhabit the basin