CONTEXT

The federal land management agencies have recognized the importance of incorporating the best available scientific knowledge into management decisions. However, both managers and researchers have struggled to identify effective processes for doing this. While many researchers attempt to make their studies useful and available, it is sometimes difficult for them to know exactly which managers need the information they develop, when they need it, and in what format it would be most useful. Similarly, managers can be overwhelmed by the plethora of potentially relevant research, and yet frustrated by the lack of studies specific to their management needs. Relevant research is sometimes buried in publications about basic research, which provide information that improves our fundamental understanding of ecosystems and only incrementally develops insights valuable to management. Additionally, some researchers and managers are not interested or do not have the skills necessary for successful research application. Both researchers and managers have demands on their time that often prevent them from communicating about useful and available studies at the times when it is most needed.

One solution to this dilemma is to develop programs, such as the Leopold Institute's Research Application Program, that are dedicated to improving the two-way communication between researchers and managers. A program that is directly focused on research application can strategically identify management information needs and the types of scientific information available to meet those needs. This includes highlighting gaps in the currently available information. Such a program can also evaluate existing communication methods, and can develop ways to improve communication of available research results to managers, making sure information is available in a useful format. This type of program is especially useful for disciplines that have an abundance of diverse and relevant research, such as wilderness. Wilderness includes a broad range of ecological and social topics about which researchers and managers must be knowledgeable. Additionally, wilderness information needs vary among the four agencies that manage wilderness in the United States as well as other audiences (e.g., academic and public) interested in wilderness management.

VISION

The Leopold Institute is guided by the following two goals:

1. Develop the knowledge needed to protect and preserve wilderness and the ecological and social values derived from wilderness.
   


2. Communicate and apply this knowledge to wilderness management agencies and other user groups.

The Research Application Program was initiated to ensure our accomplishment of the second goal. The RAP strives to communicate effectively to ensure that wilderness management is improved through increased knowledge, increased skills, and through wilderness management decisions that are based on sound knowledge of current and relevant science. Specifically, this means assuring that research information is both readily available and useful to managers, as well as educators, policymakers, user groups, and other scientists.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Overview

The Leopold Institute's RAP complements the research application efforts conducted by Institute scientists. Scientist efforts tend to focus on specific research projects or on responding to requests by specific management audiences. Most researchers do not have time to focus on distributing and interpreting all of their past research, relevant research conducted by other researchers, or on providing information to broader management audiences. Scientists who attempt to broaden their research application efforts find themselves with less time available for conducting additional research. Rather than convert scientists into full-time application specialists, the RAP provides an avenue for the Leopold Institute to strategically evaluate and improve its research application efforts, including:

• Identifying research application gaps (targeting relevant research that's not well-known)
• Investigating researcher-manager communication methods and barriers to incorporating wilderness research into management
• Highlighting successful examples of research used in wilderness management
• Identifying management's research priorities

A successful research application program allows researchers to spend more time conducting research while only allocating time toward research application efforts that address specific research projects or questions.

The Research Application Program coordinates and facilitates the efforts of all Leopold Institute staff members to apply the information necessary to understand and manage wilderness ecosystems, including efforts targeted at organizing trainings and workshops, giving presentations to management audiences, making site visits and consultations, and publishing non-technical research findings. The Research Application Program tracks and coordinates these application activities, and supplements them with additional activities that promote research application. Additional activities include maintaining and expanding the Leopold Institute's web site to disseminate information on wilderness research and Leopold Institute staff activities, synthesizing research about a variety of wilderness issues, giving presentations to managers about wilderness research and application, and publishing non-technical research summaries and news briefs about Leopold Institute findings.

RAP employees strive to be well versed in the different languages and cultures of both research and management so that they can interact effectively at the interface of these two cultures. For example, because they are accustomed to dealing with both audiences, application specialists can avoid using research or management technological jargon at times when it may not be understood. They are also more approachable to those managers who may be uncomfortable interacting directly with researchers. Rather than spending all of their time specializing on specific topics, application specialists spend some time investigating and improving communication methods, and understanding and explaining how specific research projects fit into broad contexts.

Scope

The RAP's primary audiences are federal land managers and decision makers with wilderness responsibilities. The administrative levels addressed include national and regional policy makers, as well as local decision makers, staff specialists and field implementers. The RAP also distributes information to other scientists, students, and members of the public, both nationally and internationally, who are involved and/or interested in protecting and preserving wilderness.

The Leopold Institute and the RAP focus only on issues of national or regional relevance for sustaining wilderness and wilderness values. Research conducted directly through the Leopold Institute is given the highest priority in the Institute's RAP. The second priority for RAP projects is application of the breadth of research conducted on topics addressed by the Leopold Institute, but not conducted directly through the Leopold Institute. Additionally, the RAP may address other topics as funding and staff availability permit.

Key Relationships

The Leopold Institute's RAP focuses on two-way communication between researchers and managers, with the following objectives:

1. Facilitating communication from researchers to wilderness managers and other user groups about applying information needed to protect and preserve wilderness and the ecological and social values derived from wilderness.
   


2. Facilitating communication from wilderness managers to researchers. This includes obtaining information about additional research needs, and about hindrances to either understanding or incorporating research results into management.

The RAP strives to develop relationships and to maintain contact with the following groups:

• Researchers, to maintain knowledge relevant scientific information
• Leopold Institute scientific staff and their collaborators
• External scientists who conduct research relevant to wilderness issues
  


• Managers, to maintain knowledge of research and research application needs
For example:
• Agency wilderness leaders
• USFS, BLM, USFWS, NPS National Wilderness Program Leaders
• USFS Regional Wilderness Program Leaders
• BLM State Wilderness Coordinators
• USFWS Regional Wilderness Coordinators
• NPS National Wilderness Steering Committee
• Agency program leaders for other disciplines with responsibility for wilderness
• NPS Resource Management staff
• USFS/BLM Ecosystem Management Planners, Ecologists, Wildlife Biologists, Botanists
• National Wildlife Refuge System Regional Biologists and Recreation Managers
• Field-level decision makers and staff
  


• Trainers, to incorporate sounds science into training materials
For example:
• Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center
• USFS, BLM, USFWS, NPS agency representatives

Program Components

Communicate Information about Wilderness:

• Maintain and expand Leopold Institute web site content and organization, in order to provide easily accessible information about completed and ongoing research relevant to managing wilderness.
  


• Produce informal updates about Leopold Institute activities.
• Composite annual activities report
• Annual progress reports specific to each management agency
  


• Publish semi-popular articles or news briefs about Leopold Institute activities and products to outlets such as:
• Park Science, Natural Resource Year in Review, Refuge Reporter
• Forestry Research West, Research Highlights
• Professional Society Newsletters, such as Society of American Foresters and River Management Society
  


• Develop and give presentations, addressing:
• General overviews of Leopold Institute research
• Specific topics, analogous to white papers that describe pressing management issues and the current scientific knowledge about these topics
• Potential audiences for these presentations include:
• Regional workshops for managers of wilderness or other disciplines with wilderness responsibility
• Training courses
• Manager groups assembled to address specific topics
• National or regional managers interested in more detail on wilderness issues
  


• Conduct site visits to take research findings to field users and solicit input about research and research application needs.
  


• Plan, organize, coordinate, and facilitate workshops, conferences, and focused trainings.
  


• Develop and coordinate outreach activities, including news releases and newsletters.

Identify and Be Responsive to Management Needs:

• Serve as contact for inquiries about wilderness research, such as questions about what research is available on a given topic.
  


• Help field units clarify questions for scientists by providing them with background reading, clarifying questions, and then referring them to appropriate researchers to address specific questions. This would occur at the managing unit's request and it could be accomplished through attending focused meetings, site visits, or telephone calls.
  


• Work, through interviews or focused meetings, with agency managers to strategically determine what additional Leopold Institute research or research application activities would be useful. This includes managers at the national, regional, and field levels.
  


• Serve as research liaison on management teams addressing national or regional issues.
  


• Coordinate surveys, focused meetings, and other processes to obtain information on research and research application needs.

Investigate and Improve Application, Extension, and Technology Transfer Methods:

• Investigate techniques for improving communication with managers.
  


• Investigate how managers do and do not use science, identify barriers to managers trying to access and use science, and provide suggestions on how to improve the access and use of science.
  


• Document and characterize research application success stories

Synthesize Wilderness Research Information and/or Data on Focused Topics:

• Synthesize research information to make it more accessible and to highlight the relevance of specific research
For example:
• Annotated reading lists on focused wilderness issues
• Summaries and white papers on focused wilderness issues
  


• Develop and maintain databases to compile disparate information in order to facilitate communication and awareness of available data and resources, and so data can be summarized geographically.
For example:
• Document the availability of data from studies conducted on specific wilderness issues (e.g., visitor use, visitor site impacts, fire, wildlife, invasive plants)
• Compile lists of researchers who work on specific wilderness issues
• Compile searchable databases of scientific publications

Project Prioritization

With input from Leopold Institute Research Scientists about potential project priorities, RAP project prioritization is determined annually by the RAP Program Leader and the Leopold Institute Director and documented in annual work plans. Project prioritization is based partially on the priorities described in the Scope section of this document. Project prioritization also takes into account the urgency of issues identified by the national wilderness program leaders of management agencies that provide additional funding to the Leopold Institute. RAP development projects are prioritized concurrently with issue-driven research application projects.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

The Interagency Wilderness Steering Committee agreed to the original staffing level described in the 1996 Leopold Institute Strategic Plan, as a short-term target to assure development of a functional Research Application Program. However, owing to a lack of available funding, the Institute has been unable to meet these goals. Instead, the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) funded a one-year Detail in 1996/1997 to explore the potential contributions that a Research Application Specialist could make to managers and Institute staff. In January 1998, the RMRS, with funding support from the BLM, hired a permanent part-time Research Application Specialist to begin meeting the Institute's basic communication and application goals. In May 1999, FWS funding enabled the Leopold Institute to convert this position to full-time and development of the Research Application Program was formally initiated. By January 2000, as a result of funding from RMRS, BLM, FWS, and the Carhart Center, the program hired several temporary ecological and social sciences technicians to accomplish a variety of information development projects and to provide general assistance to the RAP. The RAP has continued functioning with temporary staff since that time.

The revised staffing level below is the minimum necessary permanent staffing level needed to identify and be responsive to management needs, to communicate research through a variety of methods, and to develop/synthesize scientific knowledge on a variety of pressing wilderness issues. Permanent staffing would allow for continuity of RAP efforts and minimize efficiency losses due to the long training periods required for new temporary employees to understand the complex and wide range of issues addressed through wilderness research and management. The Leopold Institute depends on interagency support of these positions, as agreed to by the Interagency Steering Committee. Filling these positions would enable the RAP to strategically focus on understanding and supporting both short-term and long-term agency needs.

Proposed Staff:

Research Application Program Coordinator - 1.0 FTE, FS/BLM/FWS/NPS
Ecological Sciences Specialist - 1.0 FTE, FS/BLM/FWS/NPS
Social Sciences Specialist - 1.0 FTE, FS/BLM/FWS/NPS
General RAP Assistant - 1.0 FTE, FS (RMRS)

Duties of Program Leader:

• Oversee program development and program management (planning, budget, personnel)
• Act as a principal contact between the Leopold Institute and national and regional agency representatives, including those at the Carhart Training Center, to be responsive to management needs and maintain visibility of Leopold Institute research and RAP activities
• Interact with Forest Service Research, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the national and regional levels of the federal management agencies to improve research application to management (e.g., provide input to FS boundary spanning efforts; serve on national and regional management teams, etc.)
• Serve lead role in developing and implementing projects to organize, synthesize, and facilitate communication/application of wilderness research
• Collaborate with and supervise RAP staff to ensure that projects meet Leopold Institute goals
• Represent the Leopold Institute in presentations, writings, and discussions of wilderness research issues including fire, vegetation, wildlife, exotic species, recreation, and visitor use, as they relate to policy and practice
• Serve as a full team member of the Leopold Institute staff in developing and implementing Institute priorities and programs that are responsive to management needs
• Stay involved in the research process to maintain a professional working relationship with researchers and to understand the applicability of various sampling designs
• Forge partnerships with outside organizations and pursue external funding sources

Duties of Ecological Sciences Specialist:

• Synthesize research on a variety of ecological topics, such as fire, wildlife, vegetation, soil, and exotic species, that are relevant to wilderness management
• Interact with regional and field-level managers to better understand research and information needs related to wilderness ecological management issues
• Interact with researchers to determine the availability of relevant scientific knowledge to assist with wilderness ecological management decisions
• Represent the Leopold Institute on local management or research-management teams that address specific wilderness ecological research or application needs
• Collaborate with the RAP program leader or Leopold Institute scientists to publish manuscripts or develop presentations or trainings addressing ecological topics relevant to wilderness research application
• Assist Leopold Institute ecologists with ecological research projects, to maintain knowledge of the projects, and to stay involved in the research process

Duties of Social Sciences Specialist:

• Synthesize research on a variety of social science topics, such as understanding visitor experiences, recreation use estimation and recreation use management tools, that are relevant to wilderness management
• Interact with regional and field-level managers to better understand research and information needs related to wilderness social science or recreation management issues
• Interact with researchers to determine the availability of relevant scientific knowledge to assist with wilderness social science management decisions
• Represent the Leopold Institute on local management or research-management teams that address specific social science or recreation research or application needs
• Collaborate with the RAP program leader or Leopold Institute scientists to publish manuscripts or develop presentations or trainings that address social science topics relevant to wilderness research or research application
• Assist Leopold Institute scientists with social science or recreation research projects, to maintain knowledge of the projects and to stay involved in the research process

Duties of General RAP Assistant:

Web-related duties (60%):

• Update the Leopold Institute web page frequently, including announcements, conferences, staff pages, and new publications
• Work with other RAP staff to expand the Leopold Institute web page to facilitate the distribution of relevant information to users of the web site
• Improve the functionality of the Leopold Institute web site
• Interact with the Wilderness.Net webmaster to increase the efficiency of distributing wilderness research through both Wilderness.Net and the Leopold Institute's web pages

Other duties (40%):

• Implement processes to streamline Leopold Institute publication distribution, including the use of electronic means such as e-mail and the web
• Implement processes to streamline Leopold Institute library and journal organization and checkout. Maintain and update the Leopold Institute database (ProCite) of publications stored in the building, including those in the library and those in individual research libraries
• Provide technical support to Leopold Institute staff on the use of ProCite Software
• Provide technical support to Leopold Institute staff on presentation tools, such as the LCD projector, slide maker, slide scanner, flatbed scanner, and poster plotter
• Assist with miscellaneous RAP tasks and miscellaneous Institute tasks, as needed