Seminar

WASS Seminar 'Measuring, mapping and quantifying the effects of trust and informal communication on transboundary policy networks'

Organised by Wageningen School of Social Sciences (WASS), Knowledge Technology and Innovation
Date

Tue 11 September 2018 12:30 to 13:30

Venue Leeuwenborch, building number 201
Hollandseweg 1
201
6706 KN Wageningen
+31 (0)317 48 36 39
Room Room C68

Ecosystem-based management of social-ecological systems requires a number of organizations across jurisdictions to exchange knowledge, coordinate policy goals and engage in collaborative activities. Trust, as part of social capital, is considered a key mechanism facilitating the coordination of such inter-organizational policy networks. However, our understanding of trust as a theoretical construct and an operational variable in environmental and natural resource management has remained largely untested. This seminar will present the results of recent empirical research quantifying the prevalence of different dimensions of trust and in/formal communication in a range of transboundary public policy networks and their differentiated impacts on decision-making and goal consensus.

Speaker bio

Gordon Hickey completed a Bachelor of Forest Science degree (Honours) at the University of Melbourne, a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, and a Master of Public Administration (Executive) at the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, Monash University. He is presently an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University specializing in sustainable natural resource management, policy and governance. He is the Head of the Sustainable Futures Research Laboratory and Director of the McGill-United Nations Environment Programme Collaborating Centre on Environmental Assessment. Prior to joining McGill, he was the Manager of Forest Policy and Projects in the Department of Sustainability and Environment, State Government of Victoria, Australia. He is presently an Associate Editor of the journal Food Security.

Dr. Hickey’s research is at the forefront of understanding how government can better support the sustainable governance of complex natural resource management systems at a range of scales. His international and applied research seeks to offer innovative and sensitive public policy guidance on a wide range of sustainable development challenges facing society.  His research is organized around three separate, but interconnected, streams: 1) Monitoring and assessing the impact of natural resource development; 2) Fostering resilience in natural resource-dependent communities; 3) Knowledge integration and innovation for sustainable development.

https://www.mcgill.ca/nrs/staff/academic/hickey

http://sustainability-research.mcgill.ca/