Keeping environmental managers in the scientific loop

Scientists are great at finding evidence and solutions to ecological problems, however, this information is often buried in complicated jargon and hard to access journal articles. Enter the Ecological Evidence Exchange (EcoEvidEx): an innovative information portal that can be easily accessed by scientists, managers and policy makers.

Dr Sue Nichols is collaborating with researchers from around the world to improve accessibility of scientific evidence for environmental decision makers through EcoEvidEx.  

“As scientists we publish in a variety of journals, however, this evidence often doesn’t reach decision makers in useful formats or timeframes” says Dr Nichols. “Environmental managers face the daunting task of sifting through a deluge of scientific material hoping to find information relevant to their cause. EcoEvidEx is designed to help the process of synthesising scientific information and will provide a rapid review portal for decision makers.”

The EcoEvidEx online platform allows scientists to record a range of information from their journal articles such as key findings, the subjects studied, study location and design, and other contextual information. In turn, managers will be able to search the database and pinpoint useful information on the spot.

EcoEvidEx is currently being trialled by the Society for Freshwater Science and the developers are encouraging researchers to contribute and provide feedback so it can be fine tuned before a larger roll out - contribute your science to EcoEvidEx today.

“Researchers need to remember that contributing to the database not only benefits decisions makers, but spreads the impact of their research findings, and boosts the citation rate of their papers! It’s a win for everyone involved,” says Dr Nichols. “We hope that scientist will enter study results into EcoEvidEx as a matter of course, in future, it may become a condition of publication in the Freshwater Science journal and a wide range of other journals”.

Please find out more about this initiative and journal article also available.