Benefits from Hindsight

A Systems Approach Framework (SAF) process is to a large degree a social exercise, bringing together the knowledge and values of different scientists with those of other experts (e.g. technical, political, local community). The SAF could essentially be considered a methodology for working together to promote meaningful integration for gaining insights into more innovative solutions for coastal problems. This is the basis on which we make the strong statement that anyone considering implementing a SAF process should review the ideas within the section.

There is another broad reason why you should take time to look at this material. It identifies some of the challenges in integrating physical and social science methods and models as we have experienced them when implementing the SAF within the scientific community of the SPICOSA project. These challenges are not new. However, we provide some reflections on what we have learned from our experiences about what are the important issues for improved science integration.

What you will read in this section is a social science analysis which identifies processes and attributes of the SPICOSA research experience, which if conducted differently, could have made significant impacts on both the process and outputs from the SAF. You will also find reflections on what has worked well and has provided both positive experiences and SAF outputs.

The constituent articles in this section are a series of published papers. This means that there will be some general SPICOSA introductory comments on each article. They have been written for different audiences and fora and therefore they highlight a mix of practical hints and guidelines, as well as some important methodological and theoretical questions raised by our work.

Hindsight is wonderful
Social learning
Mobilising knowledge