Research Across Disciplinary Boundaries: Data Challenges and Solutions in the Environmental and Eco-social Sciences

The synthesis of data across disciplinary domains is required to achieve desperately needed understanding about modern, complex, global challenges. Complex questions in today’s world such as the challenges of climate change, carry with them a complex range of data, all of which need to be harmonised to permit analysis. In the PARSEC project [1], a team of synthesis and data scientists has been assembled from across the globe. We come from varying disciplines, including data science, the management of protected areas, ecology, remote sensing, AI, sociology, economics, and modelling. We discuss some of our solutions to enable successful collaboration as we: (1) blend data of different scales,time-frames and types; (2) work together across large geographic boundaries; and (3) ensure the data management is of international standard from the beginning of the project to publication. This work is part of the Building New Tools for Data Sharing and Re-use through a Transnational Investigation of the Socioeconomic Impacts of Protected Areas (PARSEC) project with funding provided by the Belmont Forum