Vilma Ristikangas
I am a doctoral researcher at Aalto University’s Water and Environmental Engineering research group. In my dissertation, I critically explore different understandings of the concept of resilience. My aim is to unravel what meanings are attributed to resilience and how that can affect implementing European Union (EU) water policies. My work consists of qualitative analysis of interview data and official documents.
Attending conferences is a part of academia and research work and this November my destination was the gem of Ostrobothia: Vaasa. In Vaasa, I participated in Science Days for Public Administration and Municipal Research (in Finnish, Hallinnon ja kuntatutkimuksen tiedepäivät). Topics included complexity, evaluation, reforms and resilience in different administrative levels, mainly municipal and regional administration, including health care services.
This might make you wonder why I decided to participate in a conference related to public administration – isn’t that a bit off topic? Is it even related to the EU water policies? You are not alone with this question: When I told people about Water and Environmental Engineering research group and my dissertation topic, they were visibly, and maybe justifiably, surprised. Nevertheless, in the following, in three main takeaways, I will explain why the topic of the conference was very relevant for me from a theoretical and multidisciplinary point of view. Studying a social scientific topic in the Aalto School of Engineering with a multidisciplinary research group has several benefits, and one of those is that you get introduced to different fields and ideas. If the context you work in is not very heterogeneous and you would like to broaden your horizons, in this blog post I want to show how taking part to a conference that is not entirely in your field can expand your theoretical thinking and deepen your understanding of your own research topic. Maybe you will get inspired!
Takeaway 1: Understanding resilience in public administration context
My main motivation to participate to the conference was to familiarize myself more with the theme of the Science Days: Resilience – administration in the midst of change. Resilience is a hot topic in many sectors and several academic fields, such as ecology, water governance, psychology and critical infrastructure. It means a system’s (ecosystem, society, organization) capacity to absorb the effects of a disturbance (like a catastrophe, crisis, problem) and maintain the identity of the system, thus recover without losing its core functions and adapt to the new situation after the disturbance.
Public administration resilience is particularly interesting to me because the EU water policies are implemented locally in regional administrations and municipalities. As I have interviewed municipal and regional administrative actors for my research, participating in the conference supported my interview data analysis in two ways. First, it strengthens my understanding of the way resilience is viewed in the municipal and public administration sector, and second, it provides me analytical and critical point of view to discuss resilience. For example, I noticed that the general discussion at the conference focused on the resilience of humans and organizations and did not highlight the interaction between humans and ecosystems and their interdependence, which is one of the key points in water resilience theory. These types of observations encourage me to analyze the influence of different actor groups on their understanding of water resilience, and whether it can be achieved if those implementing water policies perceive resilience mainly from a human-centered angle.
Takeaway 2: Complexity theory for managing and coping with research
I took part to a pre-conference for doctoral students where we learned about complexity theory, illustrated by Professor Brian Castellani from Durham University. Professor Castellani introduced us to his work Atlas of Social Complexity and Map of Complexity Sciences. The map is a very useful visualization of historical trajectories and scientific applications of complexity sciences (check it out, perhaps you can find the roots of your own research there!) Professor Castellani also introduced us a free interactive mind-mapping tool PRSM, which is also worth looking up and using in projects and coursework.
I was not familiar with complexity as a research topic and did not know whether it would apply to my thesis, but I was very curious. One of the most memorable exercises we did as a part of the pre-conference event, was group discussions on our research topics, sustainability transformation, municipal decision-making, integrative leadership and integration of service paths and water resilience. Complexity thinking helped us to identify common themes. For example, we all were interested in tensions that the language (integral part of complexity!) we use create in different contexts.
The exercises in the pre-conference helped me to consider in which ways my research topic is complex and how I cope with the complexity. I realized that actually the core of my research is very complex as it is strongly related to complexity theories through resilience, ecological systems theory, and interdisciplinary methods. Subconsciously, I must have tried to control the complexity of my theories by cutting them into smaller pieces and concepts. This has helped me to manage the entirety of my doctoral research in my mind and in practice. I believe holding on to this thought is valuable not only now as a nice-to-know thing, but also later when I’m framing my research in the synthesis and defence of my doctoral dissertation.
Takeaway 3: Networks across disciplines
The Science Days for Public Administration and Municipal Research meant not only new theoretical perspectives, but also an opportunity to meet new people and expand my networks also outside of my own field that broadly concerns sustainability sciences and water governance. I connected with fellow researchers from health care sciences, leadership studies, public administration and governance research. In addition to experts from different universities, I got to meet people from municipal administration, NGO’s and state-led organizations. I find these kinds of connections extremely important for mapping out possible academic and non-academic pathways after doctoral studies.
Participating in a multidisciplinary conference is a great platform for justifying the relevance of your research. As a doctoral researcher, pitching my topic to people not familiar with water-questions clearly and concisely repeatedly really helps to identify what details draw people’s interest and capture their attention. I am pleased to say that water as a study context was very interesting to many people. And as an interdisciplinary researcher, I love challenging myself to draw connections between my topic and something totally else. In this way, I seek to develop my imagination, strengthen my arguments and find potential collaborations.
Final food for thought
All in all, Science Days for Public Administration and Municipal Research expanded my knowledge on my research topic. My analysis benefits from better understanding of how resilience is discussed in a public administration context, which is central to the implementation of water policies. I became more aware of the complexities regarding my topic. Multidisciplinary discussions provided me an opportunity to show relevance of water as a research topic in a public administration setting – and I got the feeling that water can act as medium of multidisciplinarity.
Are you still doubting whether you should participate in a bit off-topic conference? What if you gained a totally new perspective on theories or research subjects that are central to your study? How about standing out and being the interesting oddball in the room that people want to share ideas with? Why not collaborate across disciplines and challenge yourself to convince everyone that your research has a purpose also in a new context? I hope sharing my experience inspires you to consider these questions and keep your eyes open for new, exciting conference opportunities!
I participated in Science Days for Public Administration and Municipal Research as a part of my doctoral studies in the Sustainability Transformation Doctoral Education Pilot and I want to thank Maa- ja Vesitekniikan tuki for supporting my conference trip with a travel grant.
Vilma Ristikangas is a doctoral researcher in Water and Development Research Group, at Aalto University’s Water and Environmental Engineering. She is doing her doctoral dissertation in the Sustainability Transformation Doctoral Education Pilot. Her dissertation topic is Different resilience understandings in the implementation of the EU water policies.