Download here the summary poster related to this project.
Meeting with interested practitioners from partner organziations in which we first introduced elements of the multimedia RiverCare communication strategy.
Project output
A visual storytelling approach to increase the accessibility of the RiverCare knowledge-base to project managers.
Challenge
Practitioners such as river managers, advisors and other interested professionals in the Netherlands and abroad are looking for efficient ways to use the river while minimizing consequences of human interventions to the environment. Methods, models and tools are developed by small and large research projects like RiverCare to open new possibilities in developing sustainable strategies. However, research publications and supporting datasets are often not available in an accessible format that highlights the context and contribution to practice. Moreover, the complexity of sustainability issues requires to diversify communication efforts to better reach interested professionals. The development of innovations approaches to tackle sustainability challenges requires to assist discussions about the research application, assumptions and related limitations in a way that all participants can actively contribute to.
Key goals: Collaborative Governance
Components of the online communication approach to improve the accessibility of the RiverCare knowledge-base and assist discussions with a practitioners audience.
Innovative components
In the era of internet, researchers have many opportunities to diversify communication practices but should better consider audience needs. Starting from a video and interviews with interested professionals, we discussed our vision about the RiverCare online communication strategy and identified preferences of the intended audience. We developed a visual storytelling approach and discuss in meetings with participants from both research and practice what (does not) work and why both for the storylines for practice and the RiverCare website. Thus, we improved the accessibility of the RiverCare knowledge-base to aid discussions with practitioners by using: (i) storylines to give an overview of main methods, models and tools, (ii) research output details for a glance of the implications to practice and links to supporting datasets, (iii) RiverCare newsletters, blogs and news to increase the reach. Our multimedia strategy is a joint effort with the Netherlands Centre for River studies (NCR) to extend our communication after the program ends. We further collaborated with water related platforms in the Netherlands and abroad to learn from each other experiences and address a wider audience.
For whom and where?
Potential users that have the ambition to explore possibilities towards more sustainable practices in the Netherlands and abroad such as:
- Professionals from the policy-making and management domain;
- Researchers coming from different disciplines interested in discussing their work multiple audiences in the science-policy interface.
Data-collection methods: Focus groups Interviews Questionnaires/ surveys
Temporal scale: 1-10years Project duration
Application development and findings
See the list of research outputs here.
Overview and interactive visuals are important to assist the navigation and interaction with our knowledge-base. Storylines are useful to show the research context and contribution but requires a thorough design. We developed a step-wise approach to prepare the first storylines with RiverCare researchers. Insights from the understanding and engagement of participants to our design process are:
- Clarify the audience and expectations about the content of the different components of our communication;
- Making explicit both benefits and limitations of contributions is important for the relevance and trustworthiness of science communication;
- The storylines are attractive to practitioners but should include main findings while balancing the complexity and oversimplification of content with visual examples of the contribution;
Status for day-to-day practice
Interested professionals can use this site to find out the most useful project for their needs or further share the link with colleagues at their organization. Working together with the RiverCare researchers as well as with other communication platforms/experts has been important to prepare the content, share experiences and to increase the reach.
Most knowledge applications are in the Netherlands but could be applicable to other locations.
Key locations: Abroad Netherlands (NL)
Spatial scale: River section
Next steps
Online surveys and follow up meetings should be further explored to allow reflection and discussions over the relevance of the research and to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. We can so compile recommendations from our experience to both the research and practical community.
Last updated: 24/03/2020
Explore the contact details to get to know more about the researchers, the supervisory team and the organizations that contribute to this project.
Contributing researchers
Juliette Cortes Arevalo
University of Twente
Contributing partners
As soon as available, explore the storyline to get to know more about the main methods or prototype tools that were developed within this project.
Explore the output details for available publications to get a glance of the innovative components and implications to practice as well as the links to supporting datasets.
Project outputs
Users’ perspectives about the potential usefulness of online storylines to communicate river research to a multi-disciplinary audience
This was the first and exploratory step on our initiative of using storylines for science communication. Researchers and practitioners think that stories of science that include facts could be useful!
14/08/2018 by Juliette Cortes Arevalo et al.
Contains: Publication open access
Take a look to the dissemination efforts and application experiences which are available in the news items and blogs.
Events
20/06/2018
PlanSmart + RiverCare = Smart River Symposium
In order to exchange experiences between the two projects, researchers of the German PlanSmart project and the Dutch RiverCare project, as well as invited guests met on the 19th and 20th of June 2018 in Hannover.
We joined efforts with the following projects to support with each other's expertise and experience the development of the new methods or prototype tools.
Related projects
Anything to ask or share?
About usWe would like to learn from your experiences and questions to take our knowledge further into practice in the Netherlands and abroad. Your feedback will help us to find out about your interests and how useful the information provided was to you.