Biodiversity loss is one of the biggest societal challenges humans face. The simplification of ecosystems decreases the provision of goods and services that humankind depends upon (e.g. water, food, air quality). Increasing ecosystems diversity and heterogeneity are therefore critical societal goals that require integrated solutions that can only be found scattered across different disciplines, theories and methodologies from social sciences, political science and environmental economics as well as from outside the scientific community. A key role within this is that of a transdisciplinary facilitator:

a researcher that implements coproduction of knowledge for the definition of actions that transform social-ecological systems. Their research activity is double folded into research in the specific theme (e.g. biodiversity loss, climate change, sustainability) and research on transdisciplinary theory building.

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My research combines theory and practice to develop transformative solutions and uncover vital knowledge through transdisciplinary facilitation with a specific focus on sustainability at the local and global scale. Building on my background in biology I make use of concepts such as carrying capacity, non-linear relationships, and resilience in structuring collaborative dialogue between scientific and tacit knowledge.

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In the process I also explore the critical role, skill sets and value of transdisciplinary facilitators: people whose role is to purposefully create the conditions that allow representatives of different disciplines, of the private and the public sectors, and of the civil society, to co-produce knowledge. Such facilitation models and roles are already well utilized in the field of urban development with the implementation of co-design processes in planning projects. I believe that transdisciplinary facilitation applied to natural resource management will be transformative for the effective implementation of sustainable management actions but requires being underpinned by research.

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My work divides into two mainstreams: (1) systems thinking and participatory approaches in the development of decision support systems to the analysis of management options where I have explored the application of Systems Approach Framework to the recovering and maintenance of wetlands, as well as, to water quality improvement in estuaries:

1. Guimarães M.H., Madureira L., Nunes L.C., Santos J.L., Sousa C., Boski T., Dentinho T. (2014). Using Choice Modeling to estimate the effects of environmental improvements on local development: When the purpose modifies the tool. Ecological Economics 108: 79-90

2. Guimarães M. H., Boski T., Dentinho T. (2014). Economic Base Model for Guadiana Estuary - An application for Integrated Coastal Zone Management. Marine Policy 43: 63–70

3. Guimarães, M. H., Ballé-Béganton, J., Bailly, D., Newton, A., Boski, T., Dentinho, T. (2013). Transdisciplinary conceptual modeling of a social-ecological system —  A case study application in Terceira Island, Azores. Ecosystem Services Journal 3: 22–31

4. Guimarães, M.H., A. Mascarenhas, C. Sousa, T. Boski, and T. Ponce Dentinho (2012).  The impact of water quality changes on the socio-economic system of the Guadiana Estuary: an assessment of management options. Ecology and Society 17(3): 38.

5. Guimarães, M., Mascarenhas A., Sousa C., Boski T., Dentinho T. (2010). System Approach for Coastal Zone Management: Application in the Southeast Coast of Terceira Island and Guadiana Estuary. Geographic Technologies Applied to Marine Spatial Planning and Integrated Coastal Zone Management. H. Calado and A. Gil. Ponta Delgada, S. Miguel, Açores, Centro de Informação Geográfica e Planeamento Territorial. Agosto 2010.

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and (2) development of methodological approaches, principals and conditions to advance the field of transdisciplinarity:

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1. Guimarães M.H., Pohl C. , Bina O. ,  Varanda M. (2019) Who is doing inter- and transdisciplinary research, and why? An empirical study of motivations, attitudes, skills, and behaviors. Futures 112, 102441

2. Guimarães M.H., Esgalhado, C. Ferraz-de-Oliveira MI, Pinto-Correia T (2019). When does Innovation Become Custom? A Case Study of the Montado, Southern Portugal Open Agriculture 4: 144-158

3. Guimarães M.H., Guiomar N., Surová D., Godinho S., Pinto-Correia, Sandberg A., Ravera F., Varanda M. (2018). Structuring wicked problems in transdisciplinary research using the Social–Ecological systems framework: An application to the montado system, Alentejo, Portugal. Journal of Cleaner Production 191: 417-428.

4. von Wehrden, H., Guimarães M.H, et al. (2018). Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research: Finding the common ground of multi-faceted concepts. Sustainability Science 1-14

5. Guimarães M.H., Fonseca C. Gonzalez C., Pinto-Correia P. (2017). Reflecting on Collaborative Research Into the Sustainability of Mediterranean Agriculture: A Case Study Using a Systematization of Experiences Approach. Journal of Research Practice, 13 (1), Article M1

6. McKee A., Guimarães, M.H., Pinto-Correia T. (2015).  Social capital accumulation and the role of the researcher: An example of a transdisciplinary visioning process for the future of agriculture in Europe. Environmental Science & Policy 50: 88-99

7. Guimarães M.H., Nunes L. C., Madureira L., Santos J. L. , Boski T., Dentinho T. (2015).  Measuring birdwatchers preferences: A case for using online networks and mixed-mode surveys. Tourism Management 46: 102-113

8. Guimarães M.H., McKee A., Lima M.L., Vasconcelos L., Boski T., Dentinho T. (2014). Putting transdisciplinarity into practice: a mixed-mode procedure for stakeholder participation in natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 58 (10): 1827-1852

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I also have a dedicated set of work and expertise in the field of sustainable transitions and natural resource management:

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1. Rangel M., Pita C., Maria de Oliveira M, Guimarães M.H. et al. (2019). Do fisher associations really represent their members’ needs and opinions? The case study of the octopus fishery in the Algarve (south Portugal) Marine Policy 101: 276-284

2. Garcia Rodrigues J, Guimarães MH, Villasante S, Sousa Pinto L. (2019). Relatório do workshop “Parque Natural do    Litoral    Norte:    Que    Futuros?”17-18    janeiro    2019,   Esposende,    Portugal, 66pp. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27659.75041

3. Hernández P.A., Guimarães M.H., Rivera M., Silva E. (2018) Assessing sustainable food systems governance in EU’s outermost regions - the case of the Azores in Portugal. Sustainability

4. Silveira A., Ferrão J., Muñoz-Rojas J., Pinto-Correia T., Guimarães M.H. , Schmidt L (2018). The sustainability of agricultural intensification in the early 21st century: Insights from the olive oil sector in Alentejo (Southern Portugal). In The Diverse Worlds of Sustainability.

5. Guimarães M.H., Sonderblohm C.P., Pita C., Rangel M., Pereira J., Gonçalves J.M.S., Erzini K. (2017). Participatory assessment of management measures for octopus vulgaris pot and trap fishery from southern Portugal Marine Policy 75, 133-142

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In summary, to date, my work has successfully applied and tested the SAF research framework in natural resource management (i.e. maintenance of a fishing community, water quality in estuaries, wetland recovery, improvement of agro-silvo-pastoral systems). I have demonstrated that dialogue between disciplines and social actors is possible and can be effective for the production of robust solutions to sustainability problems in 8 different research processes.

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My current research focuses on:

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- Evaluation of transdisciplinary research process and outcomes. Most of the literature dedicated to the evaluation of transdisciplinary research is focus on improving the process at the level of funding proposals or assessing the outputs and outcomes of finalized projects. In these cases, evaluation is developed by external reviewers and juris. My focus is on methods that allow the evaluation of transdisciplinary by its own participants. The literature on this topic is, to best of my knowledge, scarce and empirical work is needed. More work on this topic will not only allow the improvement of available methodologies but also track if transdisciplinary is understood as literature describes it and also if current processes need improvements.

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- I am also focused on testing the use of the Social-Ecological Framework (SES) in transdisciplinarity. A decisive step of a transdisciplinary process is the contextualization where the facilitator of such processes needs to attain a holistic understanding of the problem (or research question) that will be dealt with.  I am using the social-ecological systems (SES) framework developed by the Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom to structure the contextualization step of transdisciplinary processes. The SES framework allows the characterization of a sustainability problem considering all the subsystems of social-ecological systems (i.e. resources systems and units, actors, governance and the focal actin situations) while also allowing the discussion of the interaction between them. Therefore, the framework forces the search of knowledge between disciplines and can serve a planning tool for transdisciplinarity to identify knowledge gaps and missing interaction.

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- In 2020 a book on the governance of Iberian silvo- pastoral system, edited by me and other colleagues, will come out. This will be one of the first books fully dedicated to the characterization and analysis of the human factor of these social-ecological systems.

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My next horizon is the systematizing of the transdisciplinary researcher role in natural resource management, nature conservation, ecological economics, geography and other disciplines and communities dealing with sustainability challenges. Such challenges are well described in 2 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations:

Goal 14: Life below water Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources

Goal 15: Life on land - Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss

Universities and academic research are co-responsible for the challenges we are facing and need to be part of the solution. Researchers that focus on transdisciplinary facilitation need to get together to describe and train the next generation of such type of researchers. Therefore, in the future my goal is to promote a meta-analysis between colleagues so that this role is well documented, empirical experiments are shared and best practices can be disseminated.