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The following article is from an archived newsletter. See our Shared Waters newsletter.

Why Social Science Research is Critical to the Great Lakes Region

Picture of Carolyn Johns
Carolyn Johns
Water Matters - Great Lakes Policy Research logo

What does social science and policy research have to offer the Great Lakes? Can we improve governance of the Great Lakes with social science knowledge?

A team of Canadian and U.S. social science researchers thinks so.  For the past two years, researchers and graduate students from the Great Lakes Policy Research Network, established under a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant, have been conducting collaborative research.

Great Lakes Policy Research NetworkTheir work has focused on public opinion and engagement in the region, developing indicators to analyze progress on long-standing environmental policy goals in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and mobilizing research around new policy challenges such as climate change and energy.

The team has produced several resources that demonstrate the value of a bi-national, applied social science research partnership, including: the Network website; a database of more than 800 Great Lakes scholarly policy research publications; an online environmental law and policy inventory; a database of contact information for 1,200 policy practitioners and stakeholders; and four surveys.

For example, results from three surveys of Canadian and U.S. residents from across the basin are available on the website.

Survey of Great Lakes Residents

Most residents (71 percent) agree that the lakes have a significant impact on their daily life, and nearly all (94 percent) believe that the lakes are a valuable economic resource for their state or province.

Half of all residents surveyed reported that they had been to a Great Lakes beach within the past year and another 54 percent have eaten fish from one of the lakes within the past year. However, the majority (86 percent) of residents believe the lakes are in fair condition, but not necessarily improving.

In addition, researchers have produced a series of articles on policy challenges and governance capacity to deal with those challenges for a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Water Governance.

In February 2015, the Network put forward a proposal to the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada to build on this start-up research and develop a full partnership consisting of 27 academics and 20 graduate students from 18 universities in the region along with 18 government, non-government and private sector partners. The goal is to develop new baseline knowledge and tools to gauge the state of public engagement, capacity to share best practices across jurisdictions and measure progress toward meeting the goals of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The network will find out in the summer if they will be able to submit a full proposal in fall of 2015.

Social science knowledge will be increasingly important in the future governance and sustainability of the region. Understanding human behavior, sharing policy innovations and best practices and more fully engaging citizens, groups, communities, and all sectors requires social science knowledge to more fully understand, protect and enhance this complex system and adapt to future social, demographic and economic changes in the region.

This group of researchers feels strongly that social science research and knowledge are fundamental to furthering our understanding of the complex challenges and behavioral change required to ensure the region is sustainable in the future. The Network is committed to generating new knowledge about social, economic and governance systems so we can improve governance in the region and meet the long-standing objectives in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

Picture of Carolyn Johns
Carolyn Johns

Project Director at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario

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