Gaelic poetry for deaf seagulls?
A case study in making sure applied research is useful, and actually used

by Joey Volpe and Gaetan Pelletier

It’s May 15, 2019, and we are a group of approximately 25 people in a hardwood stand on Crown land near Saint-Quentin, N.B. – an eclectic mix of foresters, supply managers, forest technicians, academics, government employees, and forest operations foremen. There is snow on the ground, and it’s pouring rain. As one participant shakes the snow off a branch to move forward, he half-jokingly says, “Well, a bad day in the forest will still always be better than a good day in the office.”  As we are about to find out, truer words have seldom been spoken, at least in terms of developing and transferring knowledge in collaboration with forest management stakeholders.  We are gathered there for one reason. Our team from the Northern Hardwoods Research Institute is giving a refresher course on how best to use our flagship tree classification system. It doesn’t take long to realize that it’s not going to be a simple one-way training and discussion session. As soon as we start applying our tools to real-life hardwood stands, the questions and comments start flowing: Are you aware of the visibility issues in the new larger harvesters? Do you think operators can notice smaller form issues and risk factors on trees? This is all great now, but what about in a snowstorm at three in the morning when visibility is near zero? What effect will these new keys have on operator speed and productivity? Where are the operators? Shouldn’t they be here?  Great questions like those sometimes make producing actionable knowledge a messy, difficult, and seemingly never-ending affair – but also an interesting, exciting, and very much worthwhile endeavour for all those involved.  In 1994, Gordon Baskerville published a seminal article in which he states: “Making research match real problems requires clear/honest/blunt communication…. Making research match the problem requires researchers and practitioners to communicate, more or less continually, in sufficient depth so that it is possible to arrive at a science-based solution that is applicable.”  Sounds like a walk in the park when expressed with such simplicity. Our experience has shown us that “clear/honest/blunt communication” with stakeholders is, indeed, at the core of any successful knowledge mobilization strategy. However, as the case study below should demonstrate, the road to get there is usually winding and full of obstacles and crossroads. More often than not, just when you think you’ve reached your destination, you’re surprised to find out it is time to start all over again. 

A COMMON LANGUAGE The tree classification system developed by our team is a relatively simple tool for objectively classifying hardwoods as well as softwoods. It is intended to become a reference system for forestry professionals, managers, and researchers – creating a common language to describe trees. For many forest management activities, the knowledge of single-tree external stem attributes is critical to the decision-making process. For example, it is important to consider tree vigour and health when choosing a silvicultural system and prescriptions. Tree form and crown shape are, in turn, useful information in determining product potential, as well as predicting harvesting and processing costs.  The system was launched in 2012, at the demand of various stakeholders – government, industry, and academia. In our minds, it all seemed so clear and straightforward: launch, develop tools for practitioners, implement within industry and government, and work with academia on peer-reviewed work related to the fallout. Easy stuff. But things were a little more complicated than we anticipated!  Producing knowledge and tools that are useful to those working in the field has historically been a challenge for both practitioners and research institutions operating in the Canadian forestry sector. In his ironically titled article “Gaelic poetry for deaf seagulls – encore,” Baskerville states the problem quite clearly:  “Practitioners complain that existing research is not applicable, and researchers lament that managers are not making use of the science already available. This situation . . . stems from a weak effort on the part of researchers, and on the part of practitioners, to establish a functional match between research and the operational issues and problems in the first instance. “. . . It is not uncommon for a research solution to a forestry problem to be published without ever having been subjected to realistic review at any stage by people who are expected to use the new science to solve their actual problem in their specific forest.” With one of our operating principles being “no research for the sake of research,” we had a solid stakeholder committee, and we were working on this project at the demand of industry and government. There was no doubt in our minds that we had “a functional match between research and the operational issues.” We thought this would be a homerun. In 2012, after months of work with experts, industry foresters, and government policy advisors, we were ready to launch the first tree classification system in New Brunswick. We celebrated when lead researchers in New England and the Maritime provinces praised the system and adopted it for their research. A tool that would provide the necessary information to make silvicultural decisions, predict product distribution, and determine harvesting and processing costs – it filled an important void for practitioners, and also for academics looking to refine various predictive models for hardwood and mixed forests. To say that our team was excited and enthusiastic would be an understatement.  We launched the system with much fanfare. Everyone involved told us it was amazing, and left with a copy under their arm. For a short period, we almost came to believe our work was done. Then we realized that most of the copies we gave away to various stakeholders went straight from their armpits to the pile on their desks. 

REGROUP, REASSESS After a month or two, we came to the full realization that no one was implementing our amazing tool. How could that be? According to Baskerville, “Practitioners also have a tendency to operate in their own job environment cocoon. Because timeliness of response tends to be an imperative in their world, practitioners attack each problem with whatever tools, of whatever scientific quality, are at hand.” Long story short, practitioners didn’t have much time to devote to learning and implementing new tools. But why not? Didn’t the New Brunswick government adopt it as the official tree grading system? A little flustered, but far from discouraged, we rallied the troops, equipped ourselves with PowerPoint presentations and steel-toe boots, and headed to board rooms and forest sites to push through an implementation rollout. The answer seemed clear now: we would train government officials, forest managers, and foresters so that they could use our new tool and spread the word.  After numerous workshops, round tables, and training sessions, months turned into years, and finally we began to see that there was a willingness from top-ranking officials and industry brass to implement our tree classification tool, which by then was accompanied by a whole suite of silviculture solutions – a prescription system, best practices, technical notes, etc. With high-level buy-in, we felt we were finally on the right track.  Our system also started gaining acceptance from the academic world. The tool began to be used in a variety of modeling exercises – for everything from potential saw log recovery, to stand value estimates, to potential tree decay and effects on quality. For most research, getting peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal is basically the end of the road. Questions are posed in an academic’s office, and the answers validated in the offices of a few colleagues, sometimes without consultation with the people expected to use this research to solve real-life problems. While statistically and theoretically solid, most research is not rooted in necessity or usefulness. But we told ourselves we had validation from our peers – and it felt good. Our beloved tool had passed all the hard tests; all we had to do was deliver the content to people working in the field. If only we knew then what we know now. 

REALITY CHECK Once we started delivering workshops and training sessions in the field, we realized that the true validation of our suite of silviculture tools was far from over. Every time we met a different group, we faced tough questions and criticism. We had to find answers, readjust, and make it better. Initially, it felt kind of like failure every time, but eventually our team accepted that this is the business we are in.  Could it be as simple as not spending enough time to explain it to them? No, not that either. Developing useful tools for practitioners is not like publishing a book and putting it on a shelf. It’s never-ending and relentless. As the environment changes – thanks to technologies, harvesting methods, workforce generational change, supply needs, etc. – there is a constant need to re-evaluate, adapt, and move forward. Things change fast, and you need to try to stay ahead of the curve.  On that rainy May day in the forest near Saint-Quentin, it had been almost seven years since our tree classification system had been launched. To the untrained eye, it might have seemed like this was our first kick at the can. “What effect will these new keys have on operator speed and productivity?” How could there still be so many unanswered questions?  Most would be discouraged, or conclude that the tool was broken. To our team, this has just become another day in the forest, to be followed by several days in our boardroom and labs, finding solutions. We are working with operators and operations foremen, to find the answers. And we are conscious that, once we’re done, a new set of questions will emerge. We will continue to readjust our toolbox and move forward. For several years now, our focus has been on working in the field with practitioners, because we know that these are the people with the tough questions, and they are our best allies in answering them.

BOTTOM-UP What did we learn through this journey? If we are serious about producing useful knowledge and tools, we need to flip the traditional research model on its head. Instead of having highly qualified teams sit in a lab and think of interesting research questions, we need to work with various stakeholders to identify the real issues in the forest. We need to switch from a top-down model to a bottom-up approach. Instead of going into the field to answer questions developed in an office, we must take questions from the field and bring them into our board rooms and labs. We need to start with necessity, if we aim to finish with usefulness.   And we should not waste too much time on science until we are sure our research will be useful. While scientific methodology is essential, it should never stand in the way of developing useful knowledge and tools – imperfect as they may be, at first. Too often, researchers develop a protocol, and keep gathering data and applying the methodology until they have a “statistically significant” answer that is publishable in an academic journal. Months, even years, may be wasted to demonstrate something that doesn’t work, or something that is not useful to anyone.  When working in applied research, one must never hesitate to scrap a protocol quickly and mercilessly if it does not fit with what is needed in the field. The objective is not to publish an article, but to develop useful knowledge. We need not be afraid to put tools and models in the hands of practitioners before we attain scientific certitude. We need to take a vetting approach, allowing them to validate the usefulness of concepts and tools before we continue with scientific fine-tuning. Rapid deployment of preliminary versions of the tool, to gather feedback and make improvements, is the quickest way to produce useful products.

The end users of our research need to be treated like clients whose needs are understood and elevated to priority number one. We should never stand in our ivory tower and pretend to be the voice of knowledge. We should never act like we are delivering a curriculum to students. Practitioners need to feel like we are there to work for them – not the other way around. Honest, sometimes blunt communication, with an occasional dose of hard-core criticism, is the only true path to validation. We need to listen intently to practitioners, and adjust accordingly – or start over, if need be. We also need to keep an ear open to the criticism of academia, to make sure our work remains within the confines of good science. Those who are truly interested in applied research need to have thick skin, and get used to living between the bark and the tree. Building a bridge between academia and practitioners is not a job for the faint-hearted. Lastly and most importantly, we need to have those steel-toe boots at the ready, and go into the forest often, to see and understand the challenges faced by practitioners. Without direct exposure to forest operations, it is difficult to truly understand the industry’s ever-evolving needs. Essentially, if we are to produce useful knowledge and tools, we need to remember those wise words spoken on that snowy day in the woods near Saint-Quentin: a bad day in the forest will still always be better than a good day in the office – or the lab.

(Joey Volpe is knowledge mobilization manager with the Northern Hardwoods Research Institute in Edmundston, N.B. Gaetan Pelletier is the NHRI’s director.)