Combining social learning with agro-ecological research practice for more effective management of nitrate pollution

This paper describes the research path followed by a team of researchers who had investigated the nitrate problem in a case study area, and who became aware of the low impact of their data on the policy debate and on the practices that – as the research team saw it – had given rise to the problem in the first place. They embarked on a series of interactions first with participatory action researchers from the SLIM project (see Fig. 2 in the editorial of this issue) and thereafter with a variety of stakeholders, developing as they went along a series of “tools for dialogue” that allowed interrogation of their data by non-specialists and the confrontation of different perspectives on the problem and its solution. The team of scientists changed the way they viewed the problem of nitrate pollution of drinking water, and made efforts to bring scientific data into the public realm in ways that might bring about change in practices. In the process, the research team members had to deepen their social understanding and to learn new skills, such as facilitation, as well as develop command of a new theoretical language that could describe their emergent practice—that of social learning.