Synthesis

INTRODUCTION

Transdisciplinary sustainability science (TDSS) requires understanding and managing ecological processes by drawing on perspectives from multiple academic disciplines and from different non-academic sectors (Francis et al. 2008), often transcending geopolitical, linguistic, and cultural divides (Dallimer and Strange 2015, Wang et al. 2019). Although a framework for designing and conducting TDSS projects has emerged from practice (Lang et al. 2012), the complexity of transdisciplinary science presents many difficulties that can undermine project success (Fam and O’Rourke 2021). Critical to successful TDSS is effective communication among collaborators (Hoffmann et al. 2017, Wang et al. 2019, Fam and O’Rourke 2021). Ensuring effective communication within TDSS projects requires understanding its multiple dimensions and implementing deliberate strategies to support and assess it (Wang et al. 2019).

Addressing communication challenges requires reflecting on what communication is. Following Pearson and Nelson, communication can be described as a “process of understanding and sharing meaning” (2000:6) that involves diverse interpersonal interactions leading to joint action (decisions or outputs). That is, communication includes both an informational dimension, along which meaning is co-constructed, and a relational dimension, along which communicators interact (Hall and O’Rourke 2014). Whereas the informational dimension is often emphasized in analysis of communication in TDSS, the relational dimension is essential for establishing trust and enabling knowledge integration, innovation, and project performance (Bond-Barnard et al. 2018). These two dimensions of communication are complementary and arguably essential to any communication event (O’Rourke and Robinson 2020). An effective communication strategy for TDSS, therefore, should foster both dimensions among all project participants (Hall and O’Rourke 2014). Successful communication in TDSS requires multiple communication approaches or tools (Fischer et al. 2024). Despite the recognized importance of deliberate communication strategies in TDSS, there are few examples of assessments of these strategies and tools (Wang et al. 2019, Fischer et al. 2024).

We designed, implemented, and assessed a comprehensive communication strategy within a transdisciplinary, interorganizational, and international project that crossed multiple boundaries (Perz et al. 2010). The project, Woody Invasive Alien Species in Eastern Africa: Assessing and Mitigating their Negative Impacts on Ecosystem Services and Rural Livelihoods, was structured to include activities to address communication challenges anticipated and encountered during its life cycle. Our description of these activities and assessment of their effectiveness offer a guide through which future TDSS projects can enhance their communication strategies.

Communication-related challenges in TDSS projects

TDSS projects are generally recognized to comprise temporal phases during their life cycle (e.g., Hall et al. 2012, Hall and O’Rourke 2014), each with different communication challenges. A frequently used model of communication challenges in TDSS projects (Lang et al. 2012) describes three phases: (1) problem framing and team building, (2) co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge, and (3) integration and application of created knowledge (Lang et al. 2012, Lawrence et al. 2022). In Phase 1, the specifics of the project’s focus must be jointly delineated by a team of researchers and stakeholders through a process that can involve refining team composition to include additional participants, such as scientists or stakeholders with specialized knowledge or roles (Lang et al. 2012), and modifying project aims based on stakeholder input (Eigenbrode et al. 2024). In Phase 2, data and other knowledge requisite for the design of effective and feasible interventions are gathered. This phase may include monodisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary research on social and ecological processes. In Phase 3, the knowledge generated in Phase 2 is used to identify and initiate interventions to address the problem. These interventions will be technical and, because they are designed to support implementation, they will also entail policy or institutional elements, uptake of knowledge of management practices, and empowerment of actor groups. For success, all three phases must involve stakeholders, building relationships with them as project participants, sustaining them through knowledge generation, and relying on them for knowledge and practice dissemination and implementation.

Each of the phases of TDSS projects entails communication challenges (Hall and O’Rourke 2014, O’Rourke et al. 2023), which can be grouped into challenges requiring particular attention to their informational or relational dimensions, recognizing that all challenges contain aspects of both (Fisher 1979, Keyton 1999, Hall and O’Rourke 2014). During Phase 1, team members from diverse sectors must come to understand one another’s views of the sustainability problem as shaped by their divergent priorities and cultural values, while overcoming potential barriers of mistrust and prejudice (Weichselgartner and Kasperson 2010, Görg et al. 2014). In Phase 2, integrating knowledge and data of different types (e.g., qualitative versus quantitative) presents communication difficulties arising from disciplinary differences in terminology, understanding of key concepts, methods for validation, and professional paradigms and values among scientific disciplines (Lélé and Norgaard 2005). Simultaneously, stakeholder knowledge and ways of understanding must be incorporated. During Phase 3, informational communication about practices and relational communication and transparency that support co-ownership and trust are critical for successful adoption of intervention measures by stakeholders (Arvai et al. 2012).

Despite the importance of communication in TDSS collaborations, few papers have discussed the issue in depth (Hall and O’Rourke 2014, Morton et al. 2015, Choi and Richards 2017, Hoffmann et al. 2017, Wang et al. 2019). In our view, communication challenges in TDSS projects must be met deliberately, with attention to both their informational and relational dimensions (Fisher 1979, Keyton 1999, Hall and O’Rourke 2014). Informational communication can be hampered by differing technical vernaculars, understanding of concepts, and accepted methods for gaining and validating knowledge among disciplines and sectors. Relational communication can be hampered by insufficient opportunities for verbal and nonverbal interactions among collaborators and exacerbated by differences in cultures and languages. In large TDSS projects, communication occurs along multiple channels involving project scientists, students, and stakeholders at local, regional, and national levels throughout project phases. Relational and informational communication along each of these channels must be supported through all the phases of these projects (Lang et al. 2012, Hall and O’Rourke 2014).

THE WOODY WEEDS PROJECT

We used a case study to examine communication challenges and approaches in large TDSS projects. Woody Invasive Alien Species in Eastern Africa: Assessing and Mitigating their Negative Impacts on Ecosystem Services and Rural Livelihoods (hereafter, Woody Weeds) was a research for development (r4d) project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. Focusing on one of the major drivers of global change, invasive alien species (IAS), the project aimed to accomplish two objectives: (1) assessing the environmental and socio-economic effects of invasive alien trees in Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia; and (2) elaborating strategies to reduce their negative impacts on the environment and on rural livelihoods. A primary focus was Prosopis juliflora, an aggressive invasive tree species in eastern Africa. The project adopted a transdisciplinary approach to this complex problem that included comparing effects of increasing P. juliflora densities on the socio-economic and the environmental components of social-ecological systems. Transdisciplinary approaches are rarely employed to address P. juliflora invasions (Gebrehiwot and Steger 2024). The requisite coordinated action by multiple scientific disciplines and stakeholders across sectors and scales poses substantial communication challenges. Communication among stakeholders was complicated within Woody Weeds because P. juliflora, like some other deliberately introduced trees, is a conflict-of-interest species. Some stakeholders value the trees for benefits such as wood, shade, and reduced wind erosion, whereas others are concerned about cumulative negative impacts of the trees on biodiversity and ecosystem services such as availability and accessibility of water and fodder for livestock.

Woody Weeds responded by building an interdisciplinary scientific team collaborating with stakeholders from local to national scales. The design of the project addressed the need for transboundary collaboration for Prosopis management, e.g. between locations, subcounties, counties or countries. Representatives from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania were invited to the kickoff meeting to discuss, among others, transboundary issues (e.g., invasion from Kenya into Tanzania). Engagement during the project supported a spatial approach. For example, Kerio Valley, Kenya comprises some 15–20 locations that belong to three different counties. The project organized meetings with chiefs (the highest administrative position in a location) from all counties to agree on a common management objective and a common way of implementing early detection and rapid responses to encroachments. The scientific team comprised ecologists, geographers, social scientists, economists, and remote sensing specialists from five countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Switzerland, and Tanzania) and included 18 students in two temporal cohorts. The first cohort comprised two PhDs from Ethiopia and one each from Tanzania, the Netherlands, Kenya, and Chile, as well as two MScs from Ethiopia and Tanzania and one from Kenya. The second cohort included one early postdoc from South Africa, one PhD each from Kenya and Tanzania, three MScs from Tanzania, and one each from Ethiopia and South Africa. The project implemented several activities designed to address the expected communication challenges among these diverse participants, including a collaboration with communication experts from the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI; Hubbs et al. 2020; https://tdi.msu.edu), which conducted surveys and organized workshops and related activities aimed to improve communication.

The seven-year Woody Weeds project was organized following a generic temporal and spatial structure as depicted in Fig. 1. During Phase 1, multiple stakeholder workshops were held to exchange knowledge, reflect on stakeholder perceptions and needs, reframe the problem to be addressed in the different study areas, and adjust the project activities accordingly. The first stakeholder workshops were also used to strengthen relationships among team members, foster cross-disciplinary understanding, and design approaches to data collection. Phase 2 of the project was initially primarily mono-disciplinary, transitioning to interdisciplinary efforts to integrate environmental, social, and economic data collected at local scales with larger scale spatial assessments of the level of invasion by the most important invasive tree species. This integration allowed upscaling from local data to regional and national scales relevant for policy makers. Activities during this phase were designed to position the students at the core of the project, collecting most of the local data and working with remote-sensed data to enable interdisciplinary analysis and integration. Phase 3 sought to develop and implement management strategies. The transition between Phase 2 and Phase 3 was structured to facilitate the transfer of research findings to management strategies and entailed working closely with stakeholders. To this end, local implementation groups (LIGs) were organized consisting of representatives of all major stakeholder groups and Woody Weeds scientists in each of four defined study areas: Afar region of Ethiopia, where Prosopis invasion along the Awash river has caused reduced access to grazing land and water and associated ethnic conflicts; Baringo district of Kenya, where degradation of grazing lands by Prosopis prompted lawsuits against the government for sanctioning the tree’s introduction; East Usambara, Tanzania, a global biodiversity hotspot where invasions by Lantana camara threaten biodiversity and encroach into agricultural land, leading to cropping pattern change; and Kahe, Tanzania, which experiences a transboundary Prosopis invasion from Kenya. The LIGs selected management practices for testing within the project. The project team and the LIGs shared information generated in Woody Weeds with other stakeholders from the local to the national scale and explored ways to incorporate the project’s invasive species management findings into existing planning and budgetary processes at the subnational and national scales. More details on the Prosopis problem in eastern Africa and on the Woody Weeds project are provided in Schaffner et al. 2025.

Communication strategy within Woody Weeds

Woody Weeds required effective communication within and across disciplines, sectors, stakeholder groups, and countries. A communication strategy that involved 17 activities wholly or partially designed to support communication (relational, informational, or both) was implemented through all project phases (Table 1).

Phase 1: problem framing and team building

During proposal preparation, three of the four study areas and preselected target invasive tree species for the project were identified. Shortly after funding was approved, the senior project scientists interacted closely with stakeholders from different sectors (e.g., agriculture, environment, water, tourism, and health) and scales (local to national) to review the proposed activities, outputs, and outcomes; discuss stakeholder needs (e.g., knowledge gaps and access to information and management tools); and understand the motivations for and barriers to adopting IAS management in the context of environmental management. This was done as part of a national inception workshop (Activity 1, Table 1), to which were invited representatives of governmental agencies from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania (e.g., ministries dealing with invasive species, livestock, forestry, and biodiversity) and research institutes (e.g., for forestry or agriculture).

Subsequent to the inception workshop, regional stakeholder workshops (Activity 2, Table 1) were organized in each study area, to which were invited representatives from subnational governments and NGOs, community-based organizations, natural resource management organizations (e.g., community forest associations, charcoal producer associations), community representatives (e.g., chiefs, elders), and community conservancies (e.g., chairs of the board). Activities 1 and 2 were whole-day events during which informational and relational communication were facilitated. During the regional stakeholder workshops, participants reviewed the project objectives and activities and the planned outputs (e.g., best practice manuals and policy briefs) and outcomes (e.g., change of knowledge or practice) and refined delineation of the study areas and the target weeds based on local conditions. An important outcome was the clarification that problem framing and research questions varied among study areas, even when they had been invaded by the same invasive tree at the same time. Both the national inception workshop and the regional stakeholder workshops initiated personal relationships between project members and stakeholders, which often continued and deepened during the project. Graduate students’ participation in regional stakeholder workshops provided the students a first opportunity to meet and communicate with the stakeholders with whom they would interact regularly during data collection in the field.

Although the r4d program required that team and partner composition, activities, and funding allocated for these activities be largely set prior to project inception, Woody Weeds was able to make some modifications to the project based on stakeholder input during the national inception workshop. An additional Ethiopian partner was invited to lead implementation of invasive species management focused on reducing negative effects of Prosopis on rural livelihoods. An additional study area was added (Kahe, Tanzania). New MSc positions were added to assess stakeholders’ perceptions of the invasive tree species and how those perceptions changed during the project in each study area.

In-person all-project meetings (Activity 3, Table 1), held approximately every nine months and rotating among the countries and regions of the project, were critical for communication throughout the project. They made possible collaborative engagement among scientists and stakeholders, capacity building activities for students and stakeholders, and planning efforts for the months ahead in each region. At each meeting, a senior scientist delivered an overview presentation on their core discipline, highlighting its contributions to advancing the project’s outputs and outcomes. Stakeholders from the nearby study areas were invited to each in-person all-project meeting for knowledge exchange and to learn their views and needs regarding invasive species and natural resource management.

An annual, anonymous online communication survey (Activity 4, Table 1) was initiated in the first year and conducted every year thereafter to give project participants the opportunity to provide feedback regarding the effectiveness of communication within the project. Survey results were summarized by the communication experts from TDI in a report to leadership and to project participants at the following in-person all-project meeting. Responses to this survey often included adjustments to improve project communication.

After most of the in-person all-project meetings, a post-meeting excursion (Activity 5, Table 1) was organized to foster camaraderie among project partners in a relaxed setting. These excursions provided opportunities to connect on a personal level and to engage in shared interests such as birding and hiking.

The project team created two communication groups, one consisting of all team members and one consisting of students only (Activity 6, Table 1; as part of electronic/virtual communication). Early in the project, the PhD students were invited and encouraged to develop a student coauthored opinion paper (Activity 7, Table 1) on key components of social-ecological research and the implementation of the findings. Beginning with the first in-person all-project meeting, continuing communication activities were initiated. First, the PhD students were provided funds to go out for a dinner together without supervisors (Activity 8, Table 1) to build personal relationships in support of their collaborative effort. Second, a toolbox workshop (Looney et al. 2013, Hubbs et al. 2020; Activity 9, Table 1) was held during which all team members, including students and senior scientists, responded to a set of prompts that probed their views on the practice and application of scientific research. Participants shared their views, and the resulting dialogue revealed how fundamental research assumptions varied and enhanced mutual understanding across the team.

Phase 2: co-creation of solution-oriented knowledge

Most of the research within Woody Weeds was conducted by the students, so communication among and with students was central for Phase 2. A first student cohort of PhD students was recruited early in the project and all but one participated in the national inception workshop and the first regional stakeholder workshops. After the national inception workshop, the PhD students were tasked with developing dissertation proposals that would (1) address the research questions outlined in the proposal to r4d and refined during the first regional stakeholder workshops and the first in-person all-project meetings, (2) fulfil requirements of their specific university programs (e.g., two publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals), and (3) fulfil Woody Weeds-specific requirements (three publications including at least one interdisciplinary paper integrating their own data with data collected by a Woody Weeds student in a different scientific discipline).

These students worked with their faculty supervisors and at least one additional Woody Weeds mentor with appropriate expertise through face-to-face and virtual student-supervisor interactions (Activity 10, Table 1). Initially, student research tended to be mono-disciplinary, but eventually cross disciplinary integration was pursued. To generate meaningful knowledge about the social-ecological systems in the study areas and ways to implement novel management interventions (Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn 2007), social, economic, and ecological data were collected in each study area in multiple administrative units (e.g., sub-location in Kenya and kebele in Ethiopia) differing in as wide a range of biological invasions as possible. This sampling design required extensive communication and coordination among the students from different disciplines collecting the data in the field and those conducting spatial analysis of the invasion process using remote sensed data.

Student training days (Activity 11, Table 1), held for one or two days prior to each in-person all-project meeting beginning with the second meeting, provided training in study design, data collection, documentation and sharing, remote sensing, geospatial and statistical data analysis, cross disciplinary communication, manuscript writing, and dissemination of scientific findings to different stakeholders. Joint field work (Activity 12, Table 1) by students working in different disciplines exposed them repeatedly to the inter- and transdisciplinary context of their work. This increased mutual understanding of methods and approaches across scientific disciplines, potential constraints regarding data integration (e.g., sampling of socio-economic and environmental data at different spatial units such as households versus field plots), and the power of interdisciplinary synthesis to generate novel actionable science.

Phase 3: integration and application of created knowledge

Students were also critical for the project during Phase 3. Because PhD students in the first cohort were finalizing their dissertations, a second cohort of students was recruited to develop management options and to understand and address barriers to uptake of potential solutions to the problem of IAS. Students in the second cohort depended on data and data interpretation generated by the first cohort, often requiring that students from both cohorts work together. Decisions about how to interpret and use the data to mitigate the negative impacts of invasive trees and shrubs on rural livelihoods and ecosystems were made collaboratively, often by students from both cohorts. To facilitate this work across cohorts, a student cohort knowledge transfer event for students in both cohorts (Activity 13, Table 1) took place at one of the in-person all-project meetings.

Stakeholder engagement was especially critical during Phase 3 for implementation of management recommendations generated through Phases 1 and 2. Local implementation groups (LIGs; Activity 14, Table 1) were initiated at regional meetings as partnerships involving project scientists, representatives of affected communities, extension services, NGOs active in the study areas, and representatives of local, subnational, and national administrations. The LIGs represented the range of stakeholder views, from those who benefitted from P. juliflora and advocated its utilization to those concerned about its negative impacts and advocated aggressive management to prevent its spread (Pirozzi 2019). Using a structured, deliberative, multi-criteria decision process (Schwilch et al. 2012), the LIGs applied local knowledge and the new knowledge generated during Phase 2 of Woody Weeds to rate ecosystem services affected by different P. juliflora tree management practices and reflect on trade-offs and synergies among social, economic, and ecological dimensions of these practices.

As part of Phase 3, students were mentored in the writing of interdisciplinary research papers (Activity 15, Table 1). A PhD paper writing workshop was held at the University of Bern, Switzerland (Activity 16, Table 1) that focused on determining which data to include in interdisciplinary research papers, analyzing and interpreting those data, and drafting manuscripts.

Interactions with policymakers established during Phase 1 and maintained during Phase 2 were further strengthened in Phase 3 by regular meetings with policymakers (Activity 17, Table 1). As an outcome, the Woody Weeds team was invited to provide input into policy processes in each of the target countries. In Kenya, the project team provided a report with the major findings of this project to the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, and Forestry through the Kenya Forestry Research Institute. This report became a key resource during the drafting of a new National Prosopis Strategy in 2020/2021. In Tanzania, three project partners were members (with one acting as chair) of the task force mandated by Tanzania’s Vice-President’s Office to draft the National Invasive Species Strategy and Action Plan for Tanzania. In Ethiopia, policymakers requested data summaries, which have so far not led to changes at the policy level or at the level of on-the-ground management of invasive tree species.

Across phases

Some activities were ongoing in all phases of the project, including student-supervisor interactions and other ad hoc interactions. Others, initiated in Phase 1, occurred regularly and subsequently throughout the project, including in-person all-project meetings, student training days, PhD dinners, and post-meeting excursions. Toolbox workshops were implemented each year, with their focus evolving as the project progressed. The first was an exploration of participant views and assumptions about science and application. The second addressed issues primarily related to the research and communication aspects specifically within Woody Weeds. This workshop revealed the importance of students as links between project management and academic institutions and between scientists and stakeholders, particularly the local stakeholders with whom the students regularly interacted during their field work. The third Toolbox workshop included work on how to integrate local knowledge and scientific knowledge. The fourth involved stakeholders from an LIG who were supported in sharing their visions of their environment, their region, the actors in their region, their roles to achieve these visions, and the knowledge needed to facilitate desired outcomes.

Synopsis of the Woody Weeds communication strategy

TDSS projects confront several widely recognized communication challenges with informational and relational dimensions or both (Fisher 1979, Keyton 1999, O’Rourke et al. 2023). Figs. 2–4 provide an overview of these challenges as they arose in each phase of Woody Weeds and the activities described above and listed in Figs. 2–4 that addressed one or more of these challenges. Filled circles in these figures indicate that an activity (columns) was specifically designed to meet one or more communication challenges (rows). Open circles indicate that an activity designed to meet a specific challenge also contributed to meeting others. The table is divided into three lettered sections, one for each of the three phases of a TDSS project. Certain patterns are evident. First, all activities addressed multiple communication challenges, whether specifically or as a contributor to addressing these challenges. Second, Figs. 2 and 4 (Phases 1 and 3) include more filled circles than Fig. 3 (Phase 2), indicating that activities designed to address specific communication challenges occurred more during the beginning and toward the end of the project when stakeholder involvement was of greatest importance. Activities that were implemented during Phase 2 (Fig. 3) were primarily those that were ongoing throughout the project, adapted to address informational or relational issues as they arose. Challenges in Figs. 2–4 are categorized as primarily addressing relational or informational communication, but most involved both dimensions, in play all through the project. Communication challenges are more numerous in Phases 1 and 3 (Figs. 2 and 4), likely reflecting the complexities of problem framing and implementation.

ASSESSMENTS OF THE WOODY WEEDS COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

The effectiveness of communication in Woody Weeds was assessed during the project through the communication surveys, TDI workshops, and at the final in-person all-project meeting in spring 2022. At that meeting, students, senior scientists, and stakeholders participated in three separate workshops consisting of a survey followed by a discussion of participants’ experiences as part of the Woody Weeds project. There were 12 stakeholders (out of more than 100 stakeholders involved in project activities), nine scientists (out of a total of 24 scientists), and six students or former students (out of a total of eight PhD and 10 MSc students) in these workshops. The surveys consisted of a set of 22–27 questions with possible answers in Likert format. After completing the surveys, participants engaged in an unstructured discussion of the Woody Weeds experience, which was recorded and transcribed. Salient findings are presented here.

We summarized a subset of 23 questions that were comparable across at least two of the three groups (Table 2). Mean scores of responses to these questions across all participants (Fig. 5) indicated a generally positive assessment of sharing information, promoting efficient interactions, and creating collective knowledge within Woody Weeds. Questions concerning relational communication (5–10) were the most consistently positive across all three groups. Scores diverged more concerning participants’ involvement in problem identification and involvement in project design (questions 11–15). Students and stakeholders tended to think they contributed less to project design and its adaptive development than did scientists (questions 12 and 13). Stakeholders felt they were less involved in data interpretation than did scientists or students (question 21). Stakeholders did not feel they contributed to problem identification as much as did the scientists (question 11; students were not asked about this because they did not join the project until after problem identification).

The discussions in each workshop were unstructured, inviting comments on the survey questions and on the list of the 17 activities (Table 1) provided as a handout to participants. Seven of the activities were discussed in one or more of the workshops. Student training days were generally viewed as important or essential for effectiveness. Toolbox workshops were positively viewed for improving mutual understanding. As one scientist stated, they “provided a safe space for discussing ideas and were opportunities for everyone to speak out.” PhD dinners were viewed as important for strengthening personal relationships and facilitating collaboration. In contrast, the student cohort knowledge transfer event (Activity 14, Table 1) was not viewed as particularly effective by the students, possibly reflecting a persistent reluctance by some students to share their data for interdisciplinary work and publications. The student coauthored opinion paper (Activity 7, Table 1) was submitted to three high ranking journals but was deemed by editors-in-chief to lack sufficient originality for consideration. At that point, the students’ interdisciplinary collaborative research papers became priorities. The students felt they needed more guidance to succeed with the coauthored opinion paper.

LIG meetings (Activity 14, Table 1) were widely viewed as important for refining project emphasis, including addressing differences in attitude among stakeholders concerning the importance of removing Prosopis and preventing its spread versus preserving the trees for utilization. Some stakeholders thought that these disparate perspectives were unevenly represented in initial project meetings, with those favoring management appearing to be more vocal, although both perspectives were represented across the range of LIG participants—from local stakeholders to policymakers. Some stakeholders thought the national and local inception workshops would have benefitted from more policymaker presence and engagement. Language and cultural barriers to communication between project scientists and students and stakeholders were mentioned several times.

Despite these concerns, Woody Weeds was viewed by all discussants as successful overall in changing awareness, influencing policy, and involving stakeholders in respectful ways. Both stakeholders and project scientists considered the regional stakeholder workshops as particularly valuable. As one senior scientist noted, they helped concretize the problem definition for each specific study area and established initial personal relationships between the local stakeholder community and the project team, including students who subsequently met these stakeholders during their field activities. Stakeholders noted that other development projects with which they had been involved were less inclusive of stakeholder views than Woody Weeds, and, as a result, these other projects were less successful. Several thought that better connections between Woody Weeds and other projects working in the same regions with the same stakeholder groups would be beneficial.

As another approach to assessing the Woody Weeds communication strategy, we considered the “indicators for successful communication” in transdisciplinary projects identified by Wang et al. (2019:1678) and for which we had information for assessment. Of the seven indicators concerned with relational development (Wang et al. 2019), six appeared to have been clearly met; responses pertaining to one, team members contribute actively to solution development, were mixed (Table 3). Of the three indicators concerning solution development, two appear to have been clearly met; responses pertaining to one, joint definition of the focal problem and project objective(s), were not positive from stakeholders and students.

Another metric of success in cross-disciplinary collaboration is the number of interdisciplinary publications (Whitfield 2008). By July 2024 (24 months after the project ended), Woody Weeds had generated 29 scientific publications with primary data of which 27 were coauthored by project partners from at least two different scientific disciplines. According to Google Scholar, as of July 2024, publications from Woody Weeds had been cited more than 1,500 times. Relevant to the project’s goals for capacity building, 16 publications were first authored by PhD or MSc students from the target countries in eastern Africa.

Strengths and weaknesses of the communication strategy applied in Woody Weeds

Based on surveys, discussions, and metrics relevant to communication in transdisciplinary projects, Woody Weeds can be considered as successful overall in creating a collaborative, inclusive environment and in generating actionable knowledge. Stakeholders, senior scientists, and students all considered the project successful or very successful in establishing personal relationships and effective interactions and in generating an environment conducive for discussing ideas in an open and inclusive way for collective knowledge creation and for joint learning.

On the other hand, some limitations and shortcomings can be identified. First, students and stakeholders did not feel as involved as they would have liked in problem identification and objective development. This likely stemmed from inherent structural constraints. Student recruitment and initial stakeholder workshops were necessarily held after project had been submitted for review by the funding agency. These constraints are not atypical for programs aiming to support research for development (e.g., Phillipson et al. 2012). The experience in Woody Weeds suggests the need for a systematic change to enable funding for stakeholder engagement and even student recruitment prior to full proposal submissions for development projects.

Second, communication related to changes in Woody Weeds team composition over time was less successful. Despite activities designed to facilitate communication during the transition between two student cohorts (Table 1, Activities 8, 12, and 13), there were impediments to their success. Students from the first phase were under pressure to finish their theses and publish their scientific papers just as data transfers were required by the new students, introducing time and energy constraints. Furthermore, some of the data of first phase students were unpublished at the time of the student cohort knowledge transfer exchange, and first phase students were reluctant to share these data. This experience in Woody Weeds suggests that, in projects with sequential cohorts of participants, careful attention should be given to establishing an environment of trust and cooperation between the cohorts, including clear expectations for data sharing and mechanisms to protect intellectual contributions of all parties, while promoting synthesis and implementation.

Third, the rejection of the student coauthored opinion paper (Activity 7, Table 1) was disappointing for the students, who accordingly gave this activity a low assessment. Whereas the work on the paper helped the students reflect on and improve their interdisciplinary coauthored research publications, the rejection of the paper presents a caution to recognize and plan for the extra burdens that accompany synthetic authorship.

Fourth, the stakeholders’ differing views about what the project should focus on and to what extent stakeholders can influence the scope of the project introduced substantial communication issues, particularly during the initial project phase. Stakeholders invited to the Woody Weeds inception workshops included those aligned with the project’s focus on assessing the impacts of invasive non-native tree species and developing management interventions and others primarily interested in learning new ways of utilizing P. juliflora. The diverse stated and unstated views among stakeholders raised the question of how participatory knowledge production can be organized in a way that increases the social relevance but also guarantees scientific quality (Hage et al. 2010). Even when communication challenges are addressed, as was accomplished in Woody Weeds, disagreements cannot always be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

Over time, stakeholder participation in Woody Weeds shifted toward co-production and co-decision processes, which was facilitated by consolidated relationships built on increasing trust. This culminated in the engagement of chiefs, elders, and other opinion leaders from different ethnic groups in the study areas and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations in a structured, deliberative, multi-criteria decision process for co-selecting and co-implementing sustainable land management practices for P. juliflora. The engagement of local stakeholders in the multi-criteria decision processes reinforced their perceptions about the need to actively contribute to environmental conservation (Adoyo et al. 2022) and promoted uptake of the project findings (Eschen et al. 2024), consistent with ideals articulated by Bagnol et al. (2016). The lessons learned in Woody Weeds support Hage et al.’s (2010) emphasis on the importance of reflection and transparency regarding the role of stakeholders during different communication activities or phases of TDSS projects.

Finally, some stakeholders in Woody Weeds felt that they were not fully involved in data interpretation and in drafting management recommendations. Some of this is likely because several LIG activities, including field visits to management trials and workshops to reflect on project results, were cancelled because of COVID. This gap in stakeholder involvement toward the end of Woody Weeds has been partly addressed in a follow-up project in Kenya, in which stakeholders from different sectors acting at different scales (county government to community representatives) in three counties engaged in a co-decision process to develop a spatially explicit management plan for P. juliflora (Ehrensperger et al. 2024).

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES FOR TDSS

High-performing, collaborative research teams are characterized by “positive interdependence of team members, effective communication, and individual and group accountability” (Cheruvelil et al. 2014:31–32). TDSS projects have their foundations in collaborative environmental management (Holling 1978) that is adaptive in that it responds to changing conditions, enables learning across sectors, and pursues emerging opportunities, which are often essential for effective transdisciplinary work (Armitage et al. 2008). The approach, sometimes formally designated as collaborative adaptive management (CAM; Susskind et al. 2012), depends on close and continuous communication and collaboration with stakeholders (Steger et al. 2021, Urton and Murray 2021). Without strong communication, cross sector collaboration to solve environmental problems will be hampered by misunderstanding and difficulty identifying common priorities (Scarlett and McKinney, 2013). Despite this known requisite, there are few studies that discuss the elements of a communication strategy to support the collaborative interdependence at the heart of these efforts and provide an assessment of their success. We have outlined and assessed the communication strategy employed during Woody Weeds to address the communication challenges listed in Fig. 1. Based on that, we recommend the following be considered when designing a communication strategy for TDSS projects.

1. Include activities to address both the informational and relational dimensions of communication.
2. Include activities that disclose differences in beliefs, values, and fundamental assumptions underpinning research methods and data interpretation, which can otherwise be hidden obstacles to success of TDSS projects.
3. Include activities designed to facilitate collaboration among students and other participants collecting data in different disciplines that meet the interests of institutional and project supervisors and support interaction and knowledge exchange with local stakeholders during field work.
4. Allow for adaptive management that can detect and respond to communication issues involving team members and external stakeholders that may arise during the project’s lifetime.
5. Attend to the relational and informational aspects of communication with representative, broadly legitimated stakeholder groups early in the project to promote mutual learning and trust building. Ideally, and if funding models allow, this engagement would commence prior to the official launch of the project to enable full engagement in co-decision and co-implementation.
6. Successful communication within TDSS projects can be facilitated by constructing a matrix, such as depicted in Figs. 2–4, during project planning and design. Delineating communication challenges anticipated throughout a project’s lifetime (rows) can guide the design of activities to address each of them. Throughout the project, this matrix can be revisited for ongoing assessment and to inform adaptive management in response to communication challenges as they arise.

In summary, TDSS projects face multiple communication challenges that we recommend be addressed through comprehensive and deliberate strategies that consider both the informational and relational dimensions of communication and the several channels of communication among participants. Woody Weeds is an example of such a strategy, employed within a large, transdisciplinary, international project that addressed the problem of invasive woody weeds in eastern Africa. Based on our assessments of the project, the communication strategy was largely successful but encountered difficulties, some particular to the project but most relevant to any TDSS project. By detailing these and drawing out a set of recommendations, we hope to inform and promote similar approaches to improving communication as part of successful design and implementation of TDSS projects.

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