Working Groups (WGs) are being established to facilitate collaboration and accelerate scientific progress. The descriptions below introduce six current WGs — click on the links for more information about how to become involved. An additional opportunity to propose working groups is ongoing — watch this space for more information.
Connecting MSD Research to Operations
This Working Group aims to further the R2O2R (‘research-to-operations-to-research’) mission of the Multi Sector Dynamics Community of Practice. It does so by identifying opportunities for collaborations with, delivering decision-relevant insights to, and learning from experts in the applied R&D and practitioner/decisionmaker spaces. The reach of the MSD-R2O2R working group is therefore potentially quite large: from US federal and subnational agencies and multilateral institutions down to individual US- and non-US-based researchers, domain experts, and implementation specialists.
The Human Systems Modeling working group explores state of the art modeling methods that can improve representation of human decision making and adaptation in multi-sector systems, drawing from advances in economics, social sciences, computer science, and statistics. We investigate a range of modeling techniques (e.g., agent-based, bioeconomic, computable general equilibrium, etc.) and their integration with physical energy-water-land models for capturing human response to both natural and socioeconomic stressors under short-term shocks and long-term change.
Multisector Impacts of Energy Transitions
Technological advancement and energy & environmental policy have driven rapid changes in the energy sector, and these developments have pervasive influence on other economic sectors and natural systems. As these developments accelerate, there is an increasing need to understand the resulting feedbacks between human and natural systems. This Working Group will advance the understanding of these multisectoral relationships by building a diverse team to identify what feedbacks, sectors, and societal constructs are missing from existing analytical approaches and define new research pathways towards a more holistic understanding of the multisector impacts of energy transitions.
Professional Development and Education for Early Career Scientists
As the MSD community is formed and begins to grow, this Working Group will seek to expand participation among a diverse group of early career scientists, provide professional development opportunities to graduate students and post-docs, and serve as a contact point for interdisciplinary education activities taking place in the MSD community. The overarching goal of this group is to support early career success in the field, which we believe will in turn support the scientific vision of MSD. Specific activities include planning workshops for early career faculty and completing an inventory of MSD-related coursework at U.S. universities.
Uncertainty Quantification and Scenario Development
The Uncertainty Quantification and Scenario Development working group studies the propagation of uncertainties, including deep uncertainties, through multi-sector systems. We are interested in understanding how uncertainty interacts with complex system dynamics and cross-sectoral feedback mechanisms to affect the robustness and resilience of these systems. We also conduct research into the construction of scenarios to capture the range of uncertainties in outcome space in the presence of deep uncertainty.
Cities are a key focal point for addressing questions related to system dependencies, tipping points, and uncertainties. Cities are also a fruitful context to explore model coupling across sectors and scales. However, efforts to combine multi-sector urban tools and insights to examine key uncertainties, interactions, and tradeoffs are still nascent. The urban working group will facilitate the development of these tools and ideas. We will explore questions like: What are the risks faced by the world’s urban areas as they seek to increase resilience and balance multiple objectives such as human health, economic development, and sustainable use of resources? How does urban change influence larger-scale infrastructure, economic, and Earth system processes, and how is urban evolution constrained by these larger systems? Which processes and couplings must be represented to understand multi-sector dynamics within cities?
Emeritus Working Groups
One component of an effective community of practice is leveraging shared tools and resources. The purpose of this working group is to facilitate the reuse of models and datasets across the MSD community. Our 10-year vision is to foster a culture of openness and to facilitate a collaborative, resource-rich, community-driven way of doing MSD research. In this open science world MSD datasets would be developed using the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable; Wilkinson et al. 2016) data standards and open-source models would be the norm rather than the exception. If successful, we will accelerate progress, facilitate and incentivize collaboration, and enhance the scientific impact and visibility of the MSD community.