Factors infuencing the efectiveness of group interactions among international and interdisciplinary early‐career researchers working toward environmental sustainability in climate change

A S ENRIQUEZ; Y TELMOTZIN LORANCA; M. N. KUPERMAN

ENVIRONMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY

Springer

Año: 2024 vol. 26 p. 841 - 868

1387-585X

Global warming is a current problem that needs to be addressed by collaborating withresearchers from diferent disciplines and expertise. There is a concern about training thenext generation of scientists to holistically address climate change. One way to address thisconcern is gathering researchers to promote collaboration, as a critical aspect of the scientifc perspective. This study focused on the interactions among 119 early career research-ers from diferent disciplines and countries attending the São Paulo School of AdvancedScience on Climate Change 2017 in Brazil. The aim of this research case study was toidentify factors and social dynamics infuencing the efective generation of collaborativenetworks. First, social perceptions were assessed to expose factors infuencing the openexchange of knowledge and dynamics among the new researchers. Second, the occur-rence of interdisciplinary and intercultural interactions was evaluated using social networkanalysis. Using the qualitative and quantitative outcomes, perceived indicators related tobarriers (e.g., language and background) and drivers (e.g., gender and age) were linkedto the structure of two social networks analyzed: workplace/studyplace, and professions.Social network analysis showed that although the participants aggregated challenging thegoal of collaborative networks, they actively sought interdisciplinary approaches. Based ondetected barriers, future events organizers searching for an interdisciplinary climate changeapproach are encouraged to actively overcome these limitations by taking into account theculture, beliefs, and conceptualization aspects at a group level without overlooking indi-vidual preferences.