TY - JOUR
T1 - Role of Boundary Organization after a Disaster
T2 - New Zealand's Natural Hazards Research Platform and the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence
AU - Beaven, Sarah
AU - Wilson, Thomas
AU - Johnston, Lucy
AU - Johnston, David
AU - Smith, Richard
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - The boundary organization concept has been used to establish that collaborative arrangements and outputs across science and policy domain boundaries need to be credible, relevant, and legitimate in order to be to be effective. Although widely accepted in other issue-driven fields, this concept does not have equivalent currency in the natural hazard and disaster risk reduction context. This paper uses the development of the New Zealand Natural Hazards Research Platform during a recent earthquake disaster to assess the utility of the concept in this topic area. Lessons are also identified concerning the use of larger consortium organizations to increase policy and other end-user involvement in the management and coordination of research funding, and the impact of a major disaster on this research-funding initiative. Mapping the Platform's collaborative arrangements in relation to boundary tensions over time makes it possible to distinguish disaster effects from preexisting and ongoing structural effects and incentive regimes. Largely based in the research domain, this organization was well placed to resist the negative pressure of postdisaster time compression on research quality. The lack of balancing policy input at all levels made it difficult to resist the effect of this pressure on the networking required to integrate disciplinary, organizational, and higher-level science/policy domains, and thus build the legitimacy of the larger collaboration. The utility of the boundary organization concept stemmed from the emphasis on balance across domains and scales. The focus on effects, trends, and patterns serves as a counterweight to the blame attribution common after high-profile disasters.
AB - The boundary organization concept has been used to establish that collaborative arrangements and outputs across science and policy domain boundaries need to be credible, relevant, and legitimate in order to be to be effective. Although widely accepted in other issue-driven fields, this concept does not have equivalent currency in the natural hazard and disaster risk reduction context. This paper uses the development of the New Zealand Natural Hazards Research Platform during a recent earthquake disaster to assess the utility of the concept in this topic area. Lessons are also identified concerning the use of larger consortium organizations to increase policy and other end-user involvement in the management and coordination of research funding, and the impact of a major disaster on this research-funding initiative. Mapping the Platform's collaborative arrangements in relation to boundary tensions over time makes it possible to distinguish disaster effects from preexisting and ongoing structural effects and incentive regimes. Largely based in the research domain, this organization was well placed to resist the negative pressure of postdisaster time compression on research quality. The lack of balancing policy input at all levels made it difficult to resist the effect of this pressure on the networking required to integrate disciplinary, organizational, and higher-level science/policy domains, and thus build the legitimacy of the larger collaboration. The utility of the boundary organization concept stemmed from the emphasis on balance across domains and scales. The focus on effects, trends, and patterns serves as a counterweight to the blame attribution common after high-profile disasters.
KW - Boundary organization
KW - Canterbury earthquake sequence
KW - Credibility
KW - Legitimacy
KW - Natural hazards research platform
KW - Postdisaster time compression
KW - Relevance
KW - Research/policy integration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85016979695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000202
DO - 10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000202
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85016979695
SN - 1527-6988
VL - 18
SP - 1
EP - 13
JO - Natural Hazards Review
JF - Natural Hazards Review
IS - 2
M1 - 05016003
ER -