1. Introduction to Environmental Competency Groups (ECGs) for the MaRIUS project Follow-up to ECG Simulation Event held at project start-up meeting in Oxford 19 May 2014 Organised by: Catharina Landström, University of Oxford Enter

2. Environmental Competency Groups Environmental Competency Groups (ECGs) is a participatory method aiming to bring scientists and local residents together in order to create new knowledge about an environmental problem of concern. The Human Geography team develops this method for use in the MaRIUS project to connect drought modelling knowledge with local experience. At the MaRIUS start-up meeting, for the project team and stakeholder representatives in May 2014, we staged a 15-minute exercise simulating some aspects of the ECGs process as a first introduction to this way of working. As part of the exercise we asked for the break-out groups to take notes and to hand them over afterwards. In this presentation we use these notes as starting points to introduce ECGs. Follow these links to three images presenting the breakout groups’ answers to the three questions: Q 1: What do you know about drought? Q 1: What do you know about drought? Q 2: How do you know this? Q 2: How do you know this? Q 3: What do you not know about drought? Q 3: What do you not know about drought? Each image links to commentary and explanation of aspects of working with Environmental Competency Groups. Click on the links to see the outcomes!

3. What Responses to Q 1: What do you know about drought ? Click here to read a commentary on the responses to Question 1 Click here to return to the start

4. What Commentary on responses to Q 1: What do you know about drought? In the image the variety of responses triggered by asking 'What do you know about drought?' is represented in different typefaces, criss-crossing the page. This is to indicate that in Environmental Competency Groups (ECGs) the diverse knowledge claims participants bring to the table are not hierarchically ordered depending on a person’s education or profession, or whether it is scientific or 'anecdotal'. This sets ECGs apart because in most interactions between scientists and lay people scientists’ knowledge automatically rank higher and is granted authority. The first action in ECGs is to take inventory of what participants know about the matter of concern, regardless of how their knowledge was acquired. It is also made clear from the start that the aim of ECGs is not to achieve consensus. Aiming for consensus often leads to premature elimination of less conventional ways of knowing, which are not formulated in a manner compatible with established scientific views. Excluding personal convictions (even hobby horses) or unfounded beliefs before giving them serious consideration in the group would prevent the thinking outside of the box that ECGs aim for. Click to return to resp- onses to Q 1 Click to return to the start

5. How Responses to Q 2: How do you know this? Click here to read a commentary on the response to Question 2 Click here to return to the start

6. How Commentary on responses to Q 2: How do you know this? This question highlights the emphasis on practice in ECGs. Talking about how we come to know what we know, whether by scientific research, professional practice, or everyday experience, is critical for the ECGs objective to create new knowledge together. In ECGs different ways of acquiring knowledge are thoroughly discussed and, in the process, some knowledge claims become firmer, while other are refuted. The ECGs exploration of knowledge practices starts with participants being asked to bring a thing that they use to gain and/or represent knowledge. Objects can range from hand tools, to satellite data, to books, to everyday household items, to computer models, to photographs and so on. This establishes a habit of participants always explaining how the knowledge they offer to the collective has been created. Understanding how knowledge has been arrived at makes it possible to trust it and to provide constructive criticism; it also lays the foundation for collective creation of new knowledge and facilitates shared interpretation. In the brief ECGs simulation a range of different sources of knowledge surfaced, one group took a philosophical turn asking how we know anything, another group came up with a pragmatic answer: ‘because it has happened’. The main pathways identified as leading to knowledge were personal and professional experience. In social science terms this amounts to drawing on ‘primary sources’, learning about a phenomenon by engaging with it oneself. Additionally the break out groups identified media reports and people in authority as communicating knowledge. Social scientists view this as ‘secondary sources’ - learning from others who have engaged with the phenomenon. It was also noted that what you learn through any method might vary depending on where you are, which is an important issue in collaborations involving scientists and lay people because science is often understood to strive for general knowledge while local experience is viewed as particular. Click to return to the start Click to return to resp- onses to Q 2

7. not Responses to Q 3: What do you not know about drought? Click here to read a commentary on the responses to Question 3 Click here to return to the start

8. not Commentary on response to Q 3: What do you not know about drought? The third question - with the additional request that the groups prioritise and identify the most important gap to fill - indicates the ways in which ECGs encourage creative thinking and collaboration. In the first two sessions group members will be asked to come up with any research questions and alternative solutions that they can think of, regardless of established scientific knowledge, common sense or cost. The ideas will then be discussed in the group whereupon some will be discarded, others put on hold, and a few selected for further exploration. This process of creativity and selection is critical for co-producing new knowledge. Because ECGs are transdisciplinary ideas that would normally never arise in the same space will get considered from a wide range of perspectives. Due to the composition of the group the priorities emerging will also be different from what would be the case in any singularly scientific, expert, or local research team. The brief exercise did not provide the lead-in time actual ECGs include, but it still generated interesting results. Some questions came up in several groups while other only arose in one group. This underpins to the emphasis in ECGs to take every idea into account. In actual ECGs significant time are spent discussing each question in depth, to consider how it could be answered and what knowledge it could generate; this would lead to a list of research activities to be undertaken by participants in accordance with their individual interests and skills. Click to return to the start Click to return to resp- onses to Q 3