Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC) is a science-based service organization. In fact, our mission is “to provide integrated university- and college-based research, education and engagement (communications, extension and legal) programs to coastal communities that lead to the responsible use of ocean and coastal resources in Alabama and Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico through informed personal, policy and management decisions.”
We address this mission through funding applied-research projects and by supporting engagement and education efforts. But how do the results of a research project transform into application?
During the past 50 years, MASGC has evolved to address this topic in novel ways. Sea Grant is also unique because it supports research, engagement and education and leverages all of these investments. This has enhanced the integration of research, engagement and education within the program and allowed us to better serve our audiences.
MASGC utilizes a unique recipe to enhance the research-to-application process. If you think of this as a gumbo recipe, then the critical component is getting the two-ingredient roux right — in this case, it’s the best research and best engagement and education programming.
We identify the best proposed research
The first step is to identify the best research, and it starts with identifying priorities for a research competition. These priorities are derived from stakeholder needs. For example, the research competition that will be released in December will be based on what people shared in our strategic planning process and from the advisory council. Next, we broadly distribute our research request for proposals to researchers from diverse disciplines at all nine consortium universities.
The research selection process includes external reviewers and panelists that identify the research proposals with the highest scientific merit. Then, these top-tier proposals are reviewed for their relevance by the advisory council, which ensures that MASGC invests in the best, most relevant science.
Some researchers have appointments and interests that allow them to fully focus on the hypothesis-driven research while others may have joint research and extension/outreach/education appointments. Regardless of the researcher’s background and interest we add the second ingredient that will help transform research to application.
Researchers and extension/education professionals pair well
AFTER proposals are identified with the greatest scientific merit and highest relevance, we pair the successful research Principal Investigators (PIs) with MASGC-supported engagement and education (EnE) professionals. This team develops an engagement plan that focuses on how to get the research results to the people that can use them and engage with these stakeholders early and often throughout the research period.
The researchers and EnE professionals meet at least twice per year to discuss the progress being made on the research project and identify the additional ingredients needed to extend updates and final results broadly with some outreach occurring while project is underway. This builds the relationships between researchers and EnE professionals (perfects the roux).
Toward the end of the research project an EnE-focused proposal allows the research PI and EnE partner(s) to access additional funds and add more ingredients to the gumbo, which may include including the research results into existing or new workshops, outreach publications, presentations and other activities to spread the results. This is a win-win for everyone: the researcher’s work reaches more audiences, people who can benefit from the research learn more about the work and can apply it and EnE professionals integrate the research into their regular programming and better serve their audiences.
Our recipe has evolved through the years
MASGC did not always take this approach during its 50 years. In fact, it has been an evolving process to improve the recipe and is based on feedback from PIs, EnE professionals and target audiences.
Early models kept the research completely independent of any EnE activities. In the early 2000s, there was a requirement for researchers to include EnE professionals on their research proposals. What we learned is that often the research PIs would contact an EnE professional days before a proposal was due in order to be added to a proposal, and there was no true integration of efforts. In fact, often the engagement or education professional on the proposal never found out if the proposal was selected for funding or if they did, they were contacted in a similar fashion — a few months before the project concluded in order to provide some support and ideas when the research was practically over. This was inefficient and ineffective.
During the last seven research cycles, we have refined and improved the process that integrates these activities. In earlier approaches, MASGC began pairing up researchers with EnE professionals, but there were limited resources available and minimal contact between the groups to advance the research once the results were concluded.
Our gumbo is recommended
Now, we have found a balance that promotes better transfer of research to application and provides resources to enable success. MASGC will continue to use feedback and evolve. However, the current recipe seems to work well with positive results that better serve science to coastal audiences. In fact, the National Sea Grant Office and multiple review teams have recommended this “gumbo recipe” as a best practice and shared this with other Sea Grant programs.