How different stakeholders interact in green infrastructure and urban forestry: Knowledge transfer and collaboration

There is a common belief that the scientific community is disconnected from civil society and from the labour market, even though a wind of change is moving up at the international level and EU policies are beginning to bridge the gap. Focusing on Green Infrastructure (GI) and Urban Forestry (UF), we should also expect more collaboration between different stakeholders (such as policy makers, GI planners, and researchers), but it is also important to understand their actual background and needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the knowledge transfer and the strong and weak points of collaboration between different groups of stakeholders in urban forestry and green infrastructure. This was developed under the COST ACTION FP1204 between October 2013 and January 2014. Three different questionnaires were formulated according to the following target groups in GI and UF: public administrators (government ministry representatives; national, regional and local councillors, mayors, managers and technicians in public administration, etc.); practitioners (planners, technicians, plant producers etc.); researchers, academics etc. The questionnaires were uploaded online using Google-modules in two languages: English and Italian. The dissemination was done thanks to the help provided by: the COST Action coordinator and members, Euracademy Association, Forestry Communication Network, International Society for Arboriculture, European Arboriculture Council and direct invitations to single entities through Google searching, Associazione Italiana di Architettura del Paesaggio, Associazione Italiana Direttori e Tecnici dei Giardini Pubblici, Ersaf, Filiera EXPO, Fondazione Minoprio, and Parco Nord Milano, etc.. There was no intent to recruit a representative sample of the three targeted groups because in this case we would need to reach a very wide sample in each country; rather, the intention was to achieve a sample which was varied enough to reflect the opinion of the three groups on this concern. The three questionnaires include 26 questions divided into four parts: 1. Personal details and work information; 2. Scientific knowledge transfer (aspects of knowledge transfer to improve, assessment of knowledge transfer means, strategic sectors worthy to fund); 3. Collaboration between stakeholders (strong and weak points of collaboration, needs to start a collaboration, expectation of further collaboration); 4. Training in Green Infrastructure and Urban Forestry. Most of the questions have a response modality on a 5 point Likert scale (from 1 = Totally agree, to 5 = Totally disagree). A total of 385 responses from 33 European countries and 93 from extra-European countries have been collected: 163 private professionals, 177 researchers and 138 public administrators. Males are the most representative of all target groups, comprising 79% of private professionals, 60% of researchers and 65% of public administrators. 157 Regarding the means of scientific knowledge transfer, scientific publications in English are the most widely used and evaluated to be the most effective by researchers. Professionals and public administrators mostly participate in technical meetings, though surprisingly these are not considered effective by professionals. Moreover, manuals and textbooks are the most widely used type of publication by professionals, though their effectiveness is considered low. In terms of the collaboration between target groups, 64% of professionals have collaborated at least once with scientific institutes and 80% with public administrations. In both cases, the main types of collaboration are technical consultancy (42% and 33% respectively), and participation in joint projects funded by public bodies (32% and 46% respectively). Even the majority of public administrators count at least one collaboration with scientific institutes (72%) and private professionals (80%), and again these collaborations are mainly technical consultancy (52% and 72% respectively) or joint projects funded by public bodies (42% and 51% respectively). The same holds for researchers, of whom 86% have had collaborations with public administrations - primarily in joint projects with public funding, and 59% with private professionals, mostly through technical consultancies (50%). According to public administrators and professionals, innovation, transferability of results, and problem solution are the most important strong points of collaboration with scientific partners while meeting the project schedule and diversity of objectives are the main weak points. Moreover, both groups consider professionalism an important strong point for reciprocal collaboration. Only researchers consider the identification of new strategies a very important strong point of collaboration while bureaucracy is considered the main obstacle - especially when a public administration takes part into the collaboration. Full results will be published soon.