NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: social sciences, climate change, traditional knowledge, knowledge translation

Objective(s): To perform a literature review of articles relating to best practice for knowledge translation in the fields of environmental research and indigenous community research.

Project Description: The objectives of this project are to: 1) perform a literature review of articles relating to best practice for knowledge translation (KT) in the fields of environmental research and indigenous community research; 2) extract theoretically identified best practice from both and merge into a framework of best practice for KT of environmental research in indigenous communities; and, 3) conduct interviews (n= approx. 20) with key stakeholders from across the North American Arctic to validate the framework and identify gaps or particularly challenging areas. This research aims to create a framework of best practice for knowledge translation focused on indigenous communities in the North American Arctic through creating a proposed framework of best practice created through a literature search and coding of identified best practice from both indigenous community work and environmental work. Combining identified theoretical best practice in each of these subjects, the research will then conduct semi-structured interviews with key research and knowledge translation stakeholders to determine the fit of this proposed framework and identify gaps or challenges in KT best practice in the field. Through this research, the team aim to answer, “What are the most effective steps in knowledge translation of climate change research to Arctic indigenous communities?” Whilst research will not take place on the ground in NWT. The research team hope to create guidelines for the best ways that researchers can share and exchange knowledge with Arctic communities on the topic of climate change. Through collecting the information available in the literature, and then interviewing key stakeholders working in the north, the team will be able to identify key lessons and guide best practice for future research activities leading to better knowledge exchange between communities and researchers and the production of more usable climate change research for communities and their decision makers. Research results will be communicated through the production of a summary report emailed out to key stakeholders, presentations and poster sessions at conferences (e.g. ArcticNet), and through the production of academic publications. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from November 22, 2016 to December 31, 2016.