Like many, we have found ourselves in a virtual world as we navigate a global health crisis. Case in point: At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had just joined forces with the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to fund a project with Dr. Emmett Duffy, Smithsonian Institution, and Dr. Daniel Dunn, University of Queensland, to assess marine biodiversity and habitat protections in U.S. waters.
This project will help create a framework to enable managers to assess the adequacy of marine biodiversity protections, and target areas in most need of action. At the core of the work were two in-person meetings – proposed for the Spring and Summer of 2020 – that would bring together international experts to design and conduct a spatial gap analysis.
Well, it quickly became clear that in-person meetings would not be possible…
So much of science is about collaboration and dialogue, and this project is no exception. Duffy and Dunn had proposed to convene interdisciplinary experts from all over the world. They aimed to engage managers, policymakers, and legislators to align with existing laws and programs from the National Marine Sanctuaries to the MPA Center, to interagency partnerships such as the National Oceanographic Partnership Program.
I asked Dr. Duffy what he thought was most at risk in trying to do this project virtually: “The in-depth conversations and the informal social interactions are so important in these collaborative projects. In fact, the informal part is a big incentive for people to participate. But one upside is that despite the roadblocks put up by the pandemic, we still got this Dream Team to sign on!”
So, we set about reshaping this project to be all virtual. Duffy and Dunn turned the first in-person meeting into a series of interactive webinars and discussions. We targeted agency personnel for preview briefings about the project via Webex. We planned a public launch that involved a plenary, booth, and zoom happy hour at the all virtual 2020 Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW), a recorded evening seminar, and a whole lot of social media promotion and online dialogue.
Long story short, we’re off and running and thought it might be helpful to share tips for others also grappling with this fully online world.
You certainly can’t expect people to spend whole days on zoom. The key is to always return to your goals – both for the research as a whole and for each planned meeting. Those don’t change, it’s just your pathway to get there.
For example, core to this project is learning from international case studies of biodiversity assessment, monitoring, and management planning. Duffy and Dunn opted to start with weekly one-hour webinars, where participants would do short presentations on their experiences in different countries. To maintain consistency, each presenter was asked to answer the same set of questions through their presentations, then the full team would discuss at the end both verbally and via the chat box.
The webinar approach allowed Duffy and Dunn to juggle disparate time zones. If someone was unable to attend a session, a password-protected recording of each session – including the chat – was made available. Also, having recordings versus just meeting notes was extremely valuable for accurately capturing each person’s contribution.
Some things you can’t replace. While we were trying to mimic in-person meetings and their associated benefits, from the informal side conversation over coffee to greater teambuilding among the participants, we had to accept that we simply could not. And the sooner you acknowledge such truths, you free yourself to make the necessary choices.
Dr. Dunn put it best when he mused, “I kept hoping we could get the first workshop done before COVID-19 travel restrictions, even as it was becoming clear that we shouldn’t be traveling. Old ways die hard. Choosing a certain path forward earlier would have been more beneficial. Humans are adaptable and we have great humans on the group. You should have more faith that the participants would come through regardless of the mode of delivery.”
Sparking meaningful dialogue was our biggest hurdle. Like any scientific field, biodiversity assessment and planning is rife with debate. For the webinars, one unexpected opportunity was the chat function. In addition to asking questions aloud, scientists could chat back and forth throughout. Some folks express themselves better verbally, others in writing. Having both options accommodated different personalities.
Once the webinar series was complete, Duffy and Dunn planned several 90-minute discussion sessions to help move the group towards consensus on a scientific method to assess what marine habitats and biodiversity exist in U.S. waters. They split participants into different groups tasked with synthesizing recommendations on key related topics (e.g., climate change, protected area networks, and biogeography). This organization instigated a series of side conversations between webinars that set the stage for more constructive discussion.
There are unmistakable benefits to virtual work compared to in-person meetings. Again, Dr. Dunn, “Over the last two and a half months, we have had ten 60-minute webinars and three 90-minute discussion sessions. That amounts to two full days of in-person meetings. This has allowed time for the information from the presentations to percolate and given task groups an opportunity to digest the work over weeks, rather than minutes or hours. I think it will make for a stronger, better cup of coffee.” And Dr. Duffy, “I’ve been struck by the unanticipated bright side in the form of extended time for ideas to simmer, and to make progress alone or in small groups, outside the meeting times. I do think this will improve the products.”
While we are eager to see and embrace our colleagues again, we all know our personal and professional lives will never go back to how it was. The lessons we are learning are not only shaping the future of this project but the Lenfest Ocean Program. We are recognizing the unique benefits of virtual work and examining closely the tradeoffs compared with in-person meetings.
As of now Marine Biodiversity Dialogues is about halfway through, with Drs. Duffy and Dunn preparing for next steps following the webinar series, task groups, and discussion. Stay tuned, we are also planning more outreach… albeit online.