Enhancing fisheries education and research through the Canadian Fisheries Research Network: A student perspective on interdisciplinarity, collaboration and inclusivity

Many CFRN students benefited from strong institutional support from the CFRN, which facilitated access to industry, government, and academic collaborators outside their immediate disciplines, provided opportunities to gain hands-on interdisciplinary research experience, and improved communication skills. Logistical support came mostly from the internal structure of the CFRN (i.e., a board of directors, a scientific committee, an independent scientific advisory panel, a director, a general manager, a facilitator helping with communication with industry partners, and principal investigators for each project (see Hasler et al. 2011)). The CFRN facilitated direct and ongoing access to collaborators, facilities, equipment, training, and data, which provided students with cross-sector and cross-discipline networking opportunities, the development of strong communication skills, and hands-on research experience. The CFRN also facilitated collaborative research through financial support for travel to and participation in the CFRN meetings, industry and government meetings, national and international conferences, and work in national and international fisheries science laboratories. Additionally, funding and administrative support was provided for professional development workshops and training opportunities through both CFRN-organized events (e.g., workshops on scientific communication, Bayesian statistics, and computer programming) and external events (e.g., stock assessment workshops organized by Fisheries and Ocean Canada, and visits to other fisheries research groups). Our collective impression is that these opportunities are rarely provided in traditional graduate programs in Canada. This support was invaluable in growing our skills and for undertaking inclusive and interdisciplinary research.

For some students, academic institutional rules presented barriers to collaborative research with industry and government partners. The co-construction of research projects and engagement with non-academic research partners was limited in some circumstances. For example, several universities would not accommodate industry partners because of a lack of a university affiliation and credentials to serve on supervisory committees providing guidance and support. Additionally, academic program requirements meant that outputs that would materially contribute to degree completion were prioritized, at times to the detriment of fostering industry collaboration. Collaborative and interdisciplinary work with partners outside academia continues to be unrecognized and unrewarded at many traditional academic institutions, a view shared by conservation scientists (Dick et al. 2016).

Our structured discussions highlighted that obtaining a truly interdisciplinary education is difficult to accomplish and that such efforts can come at a cost. For example, enrollment in an interdisciplinary degree tends to significantly extend the duration of a program of study (Rhoten and Parker 2004). Moreover, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary training is difficult to obtain because professors with an interdisciplinary training and background are rare and academic programs are effectively single discipline even within programs identified as interdisciplinary. For example, 15% of the CFRN students were registered in interdisciplinary programs, yet some of these students still identified more strongly with a single discipline. In addition, the products resulting from interdisciplinary training are not yet valued in academia (e.g., reports influencing policy and outreach efforts (Goring et al. 2014)) and funding is difficult to obtain, particularly given the demarcation of Canada’s federal granting councils (Canada’s Fundamental Science Review 2017). There were also concerns about the state of interdisciplinary research as a course of study. Some students reported the widespread devaluation of interdisciplinary studies because of the seemingly common stereotype within academia that an interdisciplinary degree equates to being a generalist with no specialized skills. This sentiment, echoed by Brewer (1999) and Roy et al. (2013) suggests that an interdisciplinary degree may hinder chances of attaining a tenure track position in academia. In stark contrast, the CFRN students not registered in an interdisciplinary program reported that the exposure to multiple disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches through the CFRN significantly enhanced their fisheries education.

Managing projects that are co-constructed and involve multi-stakeholder participation is challenging, yet is the only way to conduct truly inclusive fisheries research to inform sustainable management and governance. Inclusive fisheries research requires identification of research partners and research questions, regular communication and engagement with partners, and ongoing management of expectations, objectives, and requirements for the duration of the project. Most of the CFRN students had little or no training on how to engage with partners, and some projects proceeded without government or industry partners. These projects were materially impacted by this lack. Students either had to rely on supervisors to secure research partners, diverting time from student mentoring, or students had to try and establish new collaborations themselves. Furthermore, even with pre-existing collaborations, some students had trouble maintaining cohesive partnerships with some collaborators (e.g., because of different geographic locations, backgrounds, experiences, and obligations outside the network).

In the CFRN, there were relatively few partnerships with international or cross-border fisheries, Indigenous communities, and fisheries managers. This proved problematic for some projects, particularly those focused on transboundary fisheries and (or) fisheries of high importance to Indigenous communities. Partners are not only significant stakeholders with an interest in research outcomes, but they can also be major sources of invaluable knowledge and resources such as data and analysis tools. With respect to fisheries managers, the CFRN experience demonstrated that there are still significant barriers to involving managers and policy makers in research. Collaborations with government were mainly through scientists and researchers at federal and provincial government departments. Interactions with managers and policy makers were extremely limited despite numerous attempts to engage them. Accordingly, fisheries programs considering external research partners should approach potential collaborators well in advance of beginning a research program and have a clear articulation of partner responsibilities from the outset.

Managing conflicting needs and expectations between collaborative participants is a challenge for reaching project completion time expectations and project outcomes. On the one hand, academics (university professors) tend to focus on long-term 5+ year research programs and outcomes such as student graduation and publication of peer-reviewed research papers. A student’s mandatory course requirements and qualifying exams may delay initiation of a project by 1–2 years, yet students are expected to complete all research and degree requirements within (optimally) a 2- to 4-year period. On the other hand, industry members typically require specific information relevant to their fishery, species, or fishing area on a shorter time scale, in some cases for the next fishing season (i.e., within 1 year or less) or prior to policy or management decisions on emerging issues (i.e., within months). In the CFRN, the realities of these different timelines and expected outcomes were not always clearly understood, appreciated, or valued by all partners, with some students feeling that they were trying to meet conflicting or unrealistic expectations. This situation was exacerbated by the mandated 5 year life of the CFRN, dictated by the program under which it was funded. This has implications for the duration of networks or partnerships that take a co-construction approach to research, and will determine what deliverables are possible and when they can be expected.

The CFRN students engaged in collaborations at several spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, institutional, and network scales (Cash et al. 2006), with the scale of collaboration determining the amount and type of resources required (i.e., human, financial, technical, and logistical). Some of the CFRN projects had very specific objectives, which were addressed by one or two students from the same research group collaborating with a few key industry members over 1–2 years (e.g., Gíslason et al. 2017; Haarr et al. 2018; Kincaid et al. 2017). Small-scale projects such as these required only modest resources yet still brought inclusivity and interdisciplinarity into the educational, research, and management partnerships. In contrast, a larger-scale CFRN project was refining a comprehensive fisheries evaluation framework (CFRN-RCRP 2014), which involved 11 students from three CFRN projects and five universities across Canada. Throughout this project the group of students met regularly through online meetings, and at the end of the project the students were brought together with other participants of the CFRN to share and collaborate on their results. This required much greater logistical and financial resources but resulted in a fisheries evaluation framework with a greater scope.

The concept of bridging single discipline silos of knowledge—both horizontally (i.e., across geographic space, sectors, or disciplines) and vertically (i.e., across levels of organization)—was a central theme of the CFRN. High levels of involvement by many different stakeholders introduced students to new technical skills, approaches, and perspectives, including practices outside our own field of study. Meetings and discussions among network members exposed students to novel topics in their fields, provided additional mentorships and openings for future collaboration, and offered a broader perspective on research questions than that offered by a single supervisor. Industry-led research questions and consultation of harvesters for their ecological knowledge (Stephenson et al. 2016) helped to identify gaps in current fisheries science. Opportunities were also available to gain first-hand field experience where many students accompanied fish harvesters on their boats and learned how fish were harvested.

A good technical grounding and hands-on experience in the field of fisheries is not always sufficient in the job market as employers often require additional professional skills such as strong science writing and oral communication, teamwork abilities, and project management skills. McMullin et al. (2016) identified these skills as being in demand by employers but overlooked in traditional fisheries training. The CFRN created opportunities to develop these skills, either directly through training workshops or indirectly through network collaborations. Co-construction of the CFRN research projects enhanced our ability to work with partners from different backgrounds and strengthened our oral communication skills by forcing us to engage diverse audiences in plain language. The benefits realized by involving multiple stakeholders, co-learning, and the development of professional-skills would be difficult to nurture through traditional classroom learning.

Several students also felt that some of their most valuable learning interactions were from interactions with other students (collaborative learning) within the CFRN that studied different research topics and disciplines. Students felt less inhibited to ask questions in these peer interactions than settings in which supervisors or industry were present, resulting in an increased discussion and understanding of specific disciplinary methods, techniques, theories, and tools, encompassing the ecological, economic, social, and institutional dimensions of the fisheries we were studying.