Description:

Building upon the National Academy of Sciences report on Integrating Social and Behavioral Science within the Weather Enterprise, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Weather Program Office hosted the first Social and Behavioral Science (SBS) Research to Operations (R2O) Workshop September 4th–6th, 2019 in Silver Spring, MD. The initial workshop agenda focused on types of transitions, how to develop a transition plan, and defining social science readiness levels. However, after meeting with various stakeholders within NOAA and external SBS researchers, the WPO Social Science Program realized the previous workshop agenda did not address the key challenge of SBS transitions—that NOAA needs to weave social science into its organizational infrastructure. Specifically, NOAA needs an organizational infrastructure that supports SBS transitions, such as collecting longitudinal data (i.e., data collected over time), data archives, and societal impact performance metrics that drive mission improvements. Until these organizational pieces are in place, measuring success of individual social science projects, as well as large scale change, will remain a challenge.

To start addressing these challenges, the SBS R2O workshop focused on nurturing an understanding of the unique roles, goals, and capacities of people and organizations comprising the social science and weather communities. Workshop presentations and activities helped build shared languages, terminologies, theories, concepts, and methodologies to enhance the SBS R2O process. This workshop fostered opportunities to discuss and develop SBS organizational infrastructure within NOAA by focusing on topics such as long term data collection, sharing research and development policy and products, and transitioning knowledge.

This panel session will:

• Provide a brief overview of the WPO Social Science Program’s strategic goals and priorities before the workshop took place (Dr. Gina Eosco; Social Science and FACETS Program Manager)
• Outline the major takeaways that emerged from the workshop, including the need to build NOAA’s organizational infrastructure to better support SBS R2O. (Michele K. Olson and Dr. Castle A. Williams; Social Science Program Coordinator and Social Science R2O Coordinator)
• Discuss the work-to-date on the development of a social-textual data strategy—an initiative that will help build NOAA’s organizational infrastructure to plan, manage, and evaluate its research and development (R&D) and make data driven decisions (Dr. Alice Grossman; AAAS Fellow)

Highlight how the WPO Social Science Program has incorporated workshop findings into FY21 strategic planning and program objectives, as well as look to the future of the WPO Social Science Program and how the external research community can play an integral role. (Dr. Gina Eosco; Social Science and FACETS Program Manager).