Using Grant Criteria to Shape Useful and Usable Research
Changing ocean conditions are altering marine life and how we interact with it, resulting in challenges and hardships for those who depend on and manage these resources. There is a need to support inclusive, participatory, co-designed science that can meet the challenges of sustainable ocean development and management. The philanthropic community can help shape the field of useful and usable science, not only by funding projects but by adopting grant-making approaches that are used to identify, develop, and support research projects.
Last year, we shared our grant criteria in the article “Grant-Making Criteria for Developing Useful and Usable Marine Science: A Philanthropic Perspective” in Frontiers in Marine Science with an example project whose development was guided by these standards. Our aim was to increase dialogue within the philanthropic community around what makes grant-making collaborative and effective. Since then, we’ve continued building on these concepts both internally and externally, often finding ourselves asking the question, how can we scale this approach to increase impact?
Informing Project Development on a Larger Scale
Our grant criteria have been critical in guiding the development of key relationships between the grantee and relevant stakeholders like local researchers, managers, and practitioner partners. Ultimately, this helps ensure the usefulness and relevance of the research to address specific management and stakeholder needs. Recently, we’ve had conversations on this topic through engagement with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UN Ocean Decade) Foundations Dialogue. One of its many goals is to find ways to collaborate and support the broader application of co-design across all UN Ocean Decade programs, projects, and activities, an intention highlighted in the Decade’s mission.
Through our conversations about co-design with colleagues, partners, and the Foundation Dialogues’ working group, we've recognized that these concepts and activities should take different forms depending on the context. For example, experts, rights holders, and stakeholders may need support in and time to gather and discuss what information needs exist so that they can then prioritize what research to conduct. Further, co-designing research that includes knowledge systems held by Indigenous and native peoples may require different criteria or guidance questions than the ones mentioned in our Frontiers article.
Building on What We’re Learning
These conversations have led to further iterations in our approach to grantmaking. My colleague, Sarah Close, recently held an open call for proposals on the topic of managing MPAs in a changing ocean, which included the option to apply for planning grant funds. The request for proposals resulted in nine new projects - two planning grants and seven research projects.
One area I’ve been focused on is how to strengthen the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge and wisdom in the management of marine biodiversity in US waters. This has informed the development of our latest request for proposals for Including Indigenous Knowledge in Ocean and Coastal Evidence-Based Decision-Making. To review these proposals, we intend to further adapt the Program’s grant criteria with guidance from Indigenous and native peoples who work at the intersection of science and policy.
Co-design and co-production are not static concepts nor linear in practice. As we continue to learn from partners, grantees, and stakeholders, we will continue to push the development of useful and usable science that reflects the needs of the communities most in need of this information.
