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Five children draw hand prints on a large piece of white paper on which they also write words including black lives matter, polar bears and depression.

Panel discussion on co-design and co-production of physical geography research

Tuesday 19 March, 12:00 to 13:30. Online.

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Join us for a topical online panel discussion exploring the principles and practice of co-design and co-production in scientific research. In this session, we'll explore how collaborative research design can be built into scientific enquiry because of the benefits of including diverse perspectives and importance of equitable partnerships in knowledge production. Our three panel members will explore the complexities of decolonizing research practices, the importance of inclusive participation of indigenous people and indigenous knowledge, as well as the co-production of research outputs.  The excellent opportunity to learn more about co-design, co-production, and the vital journey toward decolonizing scientific inquiry in physical geography.

The session will involve three 10-minute talks from each of the panel members followed by time for a Q&A session. We will then open some breakout rooms for a more detailed discussion of the topic. 

The session will be chaired by Jane Hart. Jane is interested in glacial sedimentology, glaciology and informatics. She is also involved in many EDI activities, via learned societies, charities and the publication of papers exploring ‘hidden histories”. She is currently General Secretary of the EGU and President of the QRA.

More about our panel members:

Becky Briant is a Quaternary Scientist who has worked at Birkbeck University of London since 2009. Following a career mostly working in the UK, she has been working with Iraqi colleagues since 2017 and become increasingly concerned with working ethically across cultures, including convening a session on this topic at a recent international conference. She will provide a high-level overview of how such issues have been addressed in other scientific disciplines.

Katherine Roucoux is a Quaternary palaeoecologist, interested in the effects of climate change on past ecosystems, and becoming increasingly interested in the value of this long-term perspective and of understanding the cultural meanings of nature in addressing the ongoing environmental crisis. Katy recently led a Leverhulme Trust funded project entitled Valuing Intact Tropical Peatlands: An Interdisciplinary Challenge which investigated how forest communities, in the Pastaza-Marañón Foreland Basin in Peruvian Amazonia, use and value their peatlands. Katy brings to the panel discussion her experiences of working with academic partners in Peru, the challenges of interdisciplinary research, and the successes and failures of our participatory methodologies.

Louise Callard is a glacial geomorphologist who combines field and laboratory research to explore current and past changes in glacial behaviour, with a particular focus on ice-ocean interactions. Louise is also a scientific advisor on the POLAR Knowledge Canada/UKRI NERC grant entitled ‘Carving out Climate Testimony' which brings together a team of Inuit youth with UK and Canadian collaborators to trace how unikkausivut (Inuit forms of storytelling) might articulate the links between climate change, displacement, and mental health. Drawing upon her involvement in this project, she will contribute insights and lessons learnt so far in the early stages of this project.