Transcending the Loading Dock Paradigm—Rethinking Science-Practice Transfer and Implementation in Sustainable Land Management

Abstract

Modern science is increasingly called on to produce societally relevant and usable knowledge to tackle global challenges.Academics respond by conducting research projects that transcend the boundaries of single disciplines and institutions by actively engaging with non-academic actors. Such institutional arrangements open up entirely new perspectives for science communication and the problem-solving of real-world issues. However, they also call for elaborate management tasks and demand learning processes on the part of all those involved. This chapter introduces transfer and implementation (T&I) as a conceptual pair of terms to grasp the challenges, without compromising the opportunities of this new research mode. In doing so, this chapter discusses contemporary approaches of science knowledge transfer, and promotes a notion that prioritises knowledge transfer over information transfer through artefacts. After reframing T&I as a management area in research projects, I present three strategic policy pathways for sustainable land management.