CONTEXT
Achieving the goals for biodiversity conservation will require impactful cooperation between biodiversity knowledges, policies and societies. While Europe has excellent scientific expertise at hand, combined with ambitious biodiversity policy frameworks, the SPSIs remain difficult to navigate. It is becoming increasingly important to also recognise socio-psychological elements that shape interactions between boundary spanners. Challenges linked to the effects of power relations, facilitation of interactions between knowledge holders, equity and justice, framing of facts, perceptions and attitudes, all influence the functioning of SPSIs, yet most boundary spanners are not fully equipped to recognise these influences and address them constructively.
Bridging Minds is funded through Horizon BioAgora project’s cascade funding on Science – Policy – Society Interface capacity development initiatives.
OBJECTIVES
The training is provided in online and in-person formats in order to be widely accessible and flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of contexts in which biodiversity boundary spanners find themselves, from local to pan-European scales. Building on the biodiversity and social science expertise of the project consortium, in collaboration with key external, EU, and BioAgora actors, a series of webinars, covering the key socio-psychological insights, is being produced.
Additionally, an innovative game is being developed to make boundary spanners face the socio-psychological elements in an inclusive and playful manner and make them explicit. This game is used in a series a in-person training for boundary spanners throughout 0226. All training elements will be integrated into a massive open online course (including game materials), ensuring their longevity and flexible use beyond the project.
