Research projects are increasingly interdisciplinary enterprises,with stakeholder processes and engagement with SMEs considered a priority. In this changing professional context, gaining relevant research skills is becoming a necessity.
Increasingly, natural scientists are faced with the need to work with people—in our case, mostly with fishers—collaborating, communicating, and participating together to increase the knowledge base and policy relevance of our work. A consequence of this is a need for more targeted training in methods strongly developed in social science research, such as interviewing, observing, and mapping.
This course will have a ‘learning by doing’ set up, whereby the facilitators give guidance on the basics of applied social science methods, give participants the confidence to use them, some social science theory underpinning them, and give background information (such as about the epistemology and ontology of the social sciences) for participants to learn more. Throughout the course, the facilitators will use interactive and inclusive work formats that can also be used in stakeholder meetings.
Objective
The objective is that through gaining new skills, participants will be better able to work effectively with stakeholders in (collaborative) research projects, as well as have a better appreciation of the strengths of social sciences in fisheries and marine research.
Level
It is assumed that participants will have a natural science or interdisciplinary background, and will have some experience working in collaborative research projects, working with stakeholders, or are otherwise interested in learning more about social science methods in fisheries science. No knowledge of social science is required.