Building Capacity for Individual and Systems-Level Collaborative Conservation Impacts: Intentional Design for Transformative Practice

Figures & data

Figure 1. Empirically-based causal model of individual-level collaborative conservation capacity and practice. Important programmatic inputs (left side, Theme 3) are the project experience, flexible funding, and a safe community of practice (CoP) which expects new approaches. Multiple dimensions of capacity (Theme 2) support long-term collaborative practice, and new professional identity and trajectory (Theme 1). Dotted “spiral” represents reinforcing relationship between practice and comfort, conviction, and awareness.

Table 1. Comparative influence of (i) fellowship projects and Fellows Program (broadly) on individual career changes (columns 1–2); and (ii) Fellows Program on long-term (career) versus short-term (fellowship project) changes (columns 2–3).

	My experience in my fellowship project…				My participation in the Fellows Program…				My participation in the Fellows Program…
	n	Agree	Mean	SD	n	Agree	Mean	SD	n	Agree	Mean	SD
Has been useful to me professionally	45	95.6%	4.56	0.76	47	85.1%	4.47	0.75
Provided insights that I have used frequently…*	46	91.3%	4.43*	0.86	47	76.6%	4.02*	0.94
Increased the degree of collaboration…	46	82.6%	4.24	0.92	47	78.7%	4.17	0.89	44	79.5%	4.11	0.92
Improved my ability to work with a diversity of people…**	46	80.4%	4.24	0.90	47	80.9%	4.17**	0.92	42	73.8%	3.93**	0.84
Improved my ability to meet the needs of communities where I work…	46	84.8%	4.13	0.98	47	70.2%	3.94^†	1.03	44	70.4%	3.95	0.89
Strengthened my leadership…	46	82.6%	4.11	0.82	47	74.5%	3.96	0.93	42	67.7%	3.93	0.92
Made me more innovative…	46	82.6%	4.11	0.92	47	72.3%	3.91	0.97	42	68.2%	3.98	0.90
Increased how much I integrate livelihood considerations…	44	75.0%	4.07	0.95	45	68.9%	3.87	0.94	43	58.1%	3.81	0.93
Provided a network that I have benefited from…	45	66.7%	3.93^†	1.05	47	61.7%	3.83^†	1.03	43	55.8%	3.67^†	1.15
Increased how much I integrate conservation considerations…	45	60.0%	3.76^†	0.91	45	62.2%	3.69^†	0.93	43	59.1%	3.73	0.90
Mean individual impact	46	n/a	4.16	0.69	47	n/a	4.00	0.71	44	n/a	3.89	0.66
	…in my career				…in my career				…in my fellowship project

Responses measured on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

*Wilcoxon signed ranked medians were significantly higher for projects than for the Fellows Program (T = 30, z = −3.27, p = .001).

**Wilcoxon signed ranked medians were significantly higher for fellows’ careers than fellows’ projects (T = 46, z = −1.23, p = .017).

^†Kruskal-Wallis 1-way ANOVA with Mann Whitney U tests indicated significant differences among fellow disciplines (†), with natural science fellows less likely to agree (Results S1).

Table 2. Illustrative quotes supporting Themes 1, 2, and 3.

	Sub-theme(s)	Illustrative quote
Theme 1: Transformed practice	New trajectories	“Participatory methods involving local people as collaborative researchers… has become my specialty… It changed my life, and my research direction.” (Fellow 7, graduate student)
	Enhanced practice	“I’m more willing to be a leader. Before I was a CCC fellow… I preferred someone else to be the lead of [collaboration]. But through the fellowship… I began to feel more comfortable speaking out and saying, ‘I think this is the way this needs to go and here’s why.’” (Fellow 14, faculty)
Theme 2: Intermediary capacity dimensions	Awareness	“The [training] retreat helped me see that there is pedagogy and evidence-based best practices for effective collaboration. And that was new to me, because I thought ‘well you just collaborate with people.’” (Fellow 19, faculty)
	Comfort	“It definitely impacted me in terms of leadership. I think of leaders as people who kind of have a burden of responsibility to make decisions… and so when you have to make decisions, you have to have information available based on a big picture perspective, which is something the CCC project helped you do…in collaboration with other people.” (Fellow 1, graduate student)
	Conviction	“Going through the fellowship got me on the right track, thinking about these tougher and more interesting and impactful questions about how to really engage communities in conservation work… and not just a researcher-subject sort of arrangement.” (Fellow 6, graduate student)
Theme 3: Key program inputs	Experiential project	“It really got hammered home [during my project] how some of what I was asking was on the right track, but other things that were emerging were so much more relevant to them.” (Fellow 15, graduate student)
	Flexible funding	“It was SO good to have…funding for [stakeholder] participation. The CCC allowed me to feed people, and that is in the literature. It’s such a huge part of collaboration. How do you get people to the table?… You have to feed people.” (Fellow 8, graduate student)
	Community of practice	“I…felt like I was a part of something… I think that being part of the cohort gave me that confidence.” (Fellow 26, graduate student)

Figure 2. Networked community of practice model (right) characterized by sustained attention to localities over multiple fellowships would link current (left) siloed cohort communities of practice (CoPs) and project CoPs and provide opportunities for mentoring.