Mainstreaming social sciences expertise in UK environment policy and practice organisations: retrospect and prospect

Morris, Carol; Brockett, Beth F.T.; Selwood, Sara; Carr, Victoria; Hall, Jilly; Hughes, Joelene; Ambrose-Oji, Bianca

Abstract

Building upon the concept of mainstreaming social sciences within conservation, we consider their mainstreaming, and so integration, within UK environment policy and practice (EPP) organisations. The paper responds to increasing calls to recognise the essential role of social sciences in addressing global environmental crises across policy, practice and research. An actor-oriented approach was deployed, producing empirical information from a multi-stage, co-designed, collaborative study involving 19 social scientists from a range of EPP organisations, to understand how they experience the mainstreaming of social sciences. The findings contribute to debates about the politics of knowledge in organisational domains other than those focused on research, specifically EPP organisations. Evidence was found of recent positive changes in how social sciences are perceived, resourced and utilised within EPP, as well as examples of positive impact. However, although EPP organisations are recognising the opportunities that social sciences expertise brings, in practice social sciences still face barriers to effective integration. Many of the challenges faced by the social sciences within academic multi-discipline research (e.g., late, narrow, or selective enrolment) were also experienced in EPP organisations, along with some unique challenges. Informed by the findings, the paper proposes a set of integration indicators designed to assess organisational progress toward addressing the observed challenges. It is recommended that these indicators are employed at a strategic level by EPP organisations seeking to better integrate social sciences expertise into their work.

Citation

Morris, C., Brockett, B. F., Selwood, S., Carr, V., Hall, J., Hughes, J., & Ambrose-Oji, B. (2024). Mainstreaming social sciences expertise in UK environment policy and practice organisations: retrospect and prospect. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), Article 399. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02891-z

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 28, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Mar 12, 2024
• Publication Date: Mar 12, 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 8, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 14, 2024
• Journal: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
• Electronic ISSN: 2662-9992
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 399
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02891-z
• Keywords: Environmental studies Science, technology and society
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/32176591
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-02891-z
• Additional Information: Received: 21 March 2023; Accepted: 28 February 2024; First Online: 12 March 2024; : The authors declare no competing interests.; : Institutional ethical approval for the research was granted in March 2020 from the School of Geography, University of Nottingham.; : Participation was voluntary and all participants provided written informed consent.