Integration First: Rethinking inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations in modelling social-ecological systems

This paper accompanies the workshop on “New Tools or New Research Culture? Towards an Integration First approach to modelling social-environmental systems,” and details the outcomes of a small scale workshop at The James Hutton Institute on “Modular, Integrated Agent-Based Social-Ecological Modelling.” The latter workshop was predicated on the long-held desirability of modularity and reuse when building models that bring together data and knowledge from multiple disciplines. Much of the progress in this area has focused on developments in technology, with the state-of-the-art focusing on using semantic integration software to facilitate automation. However, a key finding from the workshop’s discussions was that no amount of technology can compensate for inappropriately designed and managed projects, or collaborators that are unwilling or (for institutional reasons) unable to step outside their home disciplines. Hence the concept of ‘Integration First’ – projects relying on data, knowledge and model integration to achieve the intended impacts need to be built around integration as the central priority, rather than something that can be done in the last six months to tie together various threads studied using established disciplinary methods. With an understanding of what Integration First might mean in terms of project design, management, implementation and modelling, the question of the software needed to support successful integration can then be more meaningfully asked.