Closing the loop: feedbacking in community-engaged research
In January, I travelled to Kiribati, a Pacific island nation, to meet with my partners in person one last time before I submitted my PhD thesis. The point of this trip was feedbacking - a chance to discuss findings together and whether they aligned with expectations.
Before my meetings I had pointedly decided that this wasn’t going to be a series of one-way presentations, with me telling my partners what the results were. Instead, I wanted to approach this as an opportunity to showcase my work while letting my partners draw their own insights.
To do this, I put together an interactive presentation where we could click through my simulation model together. The simulation model I developed during my PhD uses system dynamics modelling to examine the whole-of-society effects of climate change in Kiribati. Using local knowledge from partners, we drew connections on how climate impacts, like sea level rise and temperature increase, will affect not only the environment, but also cause cascading impacts to economic and social systems as well, among others.
By integrating this model into an interactive presentation, we were able to visualise how current choices in Kiribati shape future trends, while also testing the effect of proposed climate adaptation strategies together. The collaborative dialogue opened through this form of feedback was useful in allowing my partners to share anecdotes when results resonated with lived experience, discuss instances when the simulation results didn’t match what they would expect, and offer suggestions for what they would like to see added.
At the end of one of our meetings a partner expressed his gratitude, saying that not many researchers come back.
I wondered, how can I do better in my own feedbacking? And how can we, as a community of researchers, build a culture where sharing back and handing over research is a norm, not an exception?
Going forward, I hope to learn from more examples of researchers using creative approaches to feedbacking - closing the loop between work produced and the partners who provided foundational knowledge. I am grateful to the Sydney Environmental Institute for recognising the value in feedback as an important research activity and funding this trip.