Identifying Research Priorities

To help identify research priorities, we have been engaging natural and social scientists, decision makers, Indigenous organizations and Indigenous experts. We have been using a structured process to identify key priority research questions related to beavers in the Arctic. This process is known as the Delphi technique.

Key objectives in defining key questions

• Driving forward objectives for research

• Ensuring Indigenous and community needs are integrated in research programs

• Ensuring research is designed to address management questions

• Ensuring research best addresses fundamental scientific questions

• Identifying mechanisms for synthesis and large scale collaborative research

Key considerations

• Ensuring all participants view are represented, that we do not have biases towards particular fields or sectors (for example that the research community is not prioritized over the decision making community).

Approaches: The Delphi Technique

The Delphi technique allows ideas to be proposed and ranked by a group of experts. This is an anonymous technique, which is designed to reduce dominance effects and group think and allows ideas to be evaluated on their content, reducing the impact of other cognitive biases. This could be beneficial when working with experts both inside and outside the academic sector, including representatives of Indigenous organizations.