Overview of the Translation Group

Translational ecology aims to increase the usability of knowledge and products beyond scientific communities by integrating socio-environmental knowledge and stakeholders as partners in the process and projects. Co-production is an inclusive process of knowledge production that engages partners from a range of sectors including academia, agencies, businesses, and communities.  Ideally, co-production starts at the beginning of a project, to generate questions, share system insights, and inform decision making with end products being operationalized with accelerated use.

The Translation Working Group organically developed from the overlap in activities by the Social Science and Partners & Knowledge Transfer Working Groups. The Partners working group was focused on fostering collaborations and forecast co-production among academics, government agencies, industry, NGOs, and citizen scientists. Whereas, the Social Science Working Group was focused on: developing methods, interdisciplinary collaboration on improving ecological forecasting models, co-production with stakeholders who may or will use ecological forecasts, developing and testing new ecological forecasting decision support products, and improving the tools and processes that advance the use of forecasts in environmental decisions.

Translation Working Group Schedule of Calls:
The Translation Group will meet on September 12, October 10, November 14, December 12 at 12pm US Eastern. A new schedule will be set up for January to May, 2023. We are always open to people joining the calls, contact us at eco4cast.initiative@gmail.com

Resources Previously Developed by the Social Science and Partners & Knowledge Transfer Groups

• Seminars
  • Science Communication Seminars. The Partners & Knowledge Transfer Working Group hosted two virtual seminars on science communication.
    • The first was on November 19, 2021 “Serious Fun: Reimagining Virtual Events on Ecological Forecasting”.
    • The second seminar was on January 19, 2022 on “Sharing is Caring: Communicating Science Beyond Academic Publications”
    • A blog post providing an overview and resources shared from the Nov 19 call is available here. And a recording of the Jan 19 call is here.
    • Best Practices for Visually Communicating Ecological Forecast Uncertainty. The Social Science Working Group hosted a virtual panel on May 17, 2021. The panelist shared results from recent experiments assessing the efficacy of ecological forecast visualizations and the development of a teaching module for undergraduate students to learn about visualizing uncertainty in forecasts. A recording of the panel and resources shared by the panelists are available HERE.
    • Co-production & Actionable Science Panel. The Partners & Knowledge Transfer Working Group hosted a virtual panel on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 to discuss best practices and lessons learned for co-producing scientific material with stakeholders and decision-makers. You can find a recording from that panel and the resources shared by the panelists HERE.
  • Making Ecological Forecasts Operational: Some Lessons Learned By NOAA, July 22, 2019
  • Making Ecological Forecasts Operational: The Process Used by NOAA’s Satellite & Information Service, November 18, 2019
• Blog Posts 
  • The Integration of Ecological Forecasts Into Environmental Policy, July 14, 2021
  • Social Science in Ecological Forecasting: People refining forecast visualization, March 23, 2020
  • Social Sciences in Ecological Forecasting, December 13, 2019
• Bibliographies
  • Data Visualization Best Practices Bibliography.
    • This list is also available in the Ecological Forecasting Initiative Bibliography Zotero Group Library. Use the Filter Tags section in the lower left-hand corner of the library to select the “EFI Visualization Paper” tag to bring up all the references provided in the link above.
  • Co-production, Team Science, Translational Science, Science Communication, Bibliography.
    • This list is also available in the Ecological Forecasting Initiative Bibliography Zotero Group Library. Use the Filter Tags section in the lower left-hand corner of the library to select the “EFI Partners & Knowledge Transfer Paper” tag to bring up all the references provided in the link above.

Notes from Working Group Calls
Co-chairs: Kira Sullivan-Wiley (The Pew Charitable Trust), Michael Gerst (University of Maryland)

1. September 12, 2022
2. August 9, 2022
3. July 12, 2022
4. June 21, 2022
5. May 5, 2022
6. March 8, 2022 – joint Social Sciences and Partner Working Groups call