INFEWS/T3 RCN: EngageINFEWS - A Research Coordination Network for Community and Stakeholder Engagement Critical to Food, Energy, and Water Systems

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Scientific efforts that focus on innovations at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems (INFEWS) necessarily require that scientists work closely with non-scientists to produce beneficial, appropriate, and useable sustainability outcomes. Scientific approaches that involve communities, industry, tribal organizations, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and other stakeholders have been called "community-engaged research" or "stakeholder engagement." The EngageINFEWS research coordination network (RCN) brings together a diverse group of scientists and non-scientists to develop and document a cohesive set of best practices for community engaged research at the intersection of food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) science. EngageINFEWS aims to advance knowledge of community-engaged research and to help food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) science serve the needs of various stakeholders interested in FEWS. Results of this RCN will serve to ensure that human communities are equipped with the best possible tools to respond to both chronic and acute social and environmental changes impacting food, energy, and water systems (FEWS). Community- and stakeholder-engaged research seeks to create a productive and collaborative space for scholarship that involves non-scientists in scientific work. The framework developed by the EngageINFEWS research collaborative network (RCN) considers how principles of collaborative governance may be useful in developing and understanding best practices for working both in and with communities to improve FEWS research. The overarching hypothesis of this RCN is that appropriate approaches to community and stakeholder engagement are determined by the context of specific FEWS projects and differ based on each context. EngageINFEWS is informed by two framing questions: 1) How are community and stakeholder engagement best integrated into interdisciplinary FEWS projects? 2) How can INFEWS teams conduct productive community and stakeholder engagement to support research and educational activities? The overarching goal of the EngageINFEWS RCN is to develop a set of current and best practices across FEWS efforts. This goal is being achieved using a framework co-created by EngageINFEWS network members that is iterative, interdisciplinary, reflexive, and evaluative. This includes creating a long term, sustainable effort which can work with and alongside existing FEWS initiatives to ensure that research is responsive to the needs, concerns, and priorities of the people and institutions that are most affected by FEW system dynamics, vulnerabilities, and change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.