Kevin Collins

The Open University, Communication and Systems, Faculty Member

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My research and teaching is about using systems ideas and practices to improve the way we are managing our environment. Key to this is how social learning processes can help to make sense of and transform 'messy' situations, such as climate change, where no single individual or organisation has the knowledge or capacity to bring about improvements.

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Papers by Kevin Collins

Sustainability and management of groundwater resources in the Minchin Basin, Gansu Province

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Understanding and developing communities of practice through diagramming

Policy Press eBooks, Sep 6, 2017

This chapter draws on the authors' experiences over many years of research into social learni... more This chapter draws on the authors' experiences over many years of research into social learning systems. The authors particularly focus on their work on communities of practice as social learning systems and reflect on their experiences of using diagramming to map and share understandings and develop knowledge, in the context of water governance and climate change. They build on a range of systemic and participatory traditions to design their research processes. Some of the authors have also taught these techniques and have developed an understanding of how skills in diagramming can be developed both for exploration and for communication. The authors therefore reflect on the effectiveness of diagramming processes for different purposes, reviewing a range of the techniques' strengths and limitations from their use in different contexts.

An analytical and descriptive model of sustainable development for the Environment Agency

Global Water Governance and Climate Change: Identifying Innovative Arrangements for Adaptive Transformation

Water, 2018

A convoluted network of different water governance systems exists around the world. Collectively,... more A convoluted network of different water governance systems exists around the world. Collectively, these systems provide insight into how to build sustainable regimes of water use and management. We argue that the challenge is not to make the system less convoluted, but rather to support positive and promising trends in governance, creating a vision for future environmental outcomes. In this paper, we analyse nine water case studies from around the world to help identify potential 'innovative arrangements' for addressing existing dilemmas. We argue that such arrangements can be used as a catalyst for crafting new global water governance futures. The nine case studies were selected for their diversity in terms of location, scale and water dilemma, and through an examination of their contexts, structures and processes we identify key themes to consider in the milieu of adaptive transformation. These themes include the importance of acknowledging socio-ecological entanglements, understanding the political dimensions of environmental dilemmas, the recognition of different constructions of the dillema, and the importance of democratized processes.

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Reframing water governance praxis: Does reflection on metaphors have a role?

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2015

Action for adaptation is needed in the face of anthropogenic climate change. The record of adapta... more Action for adaptation is needed in the face of anthropogenic climate change. The record of adaptation in the field of freshwater governance is poor to date, as it is apparently constrained by operational frameworks. Analyses based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor can reveal underlying, often institutionally reified, operational frameworks. We present a desktop metaphor mapping study of one UK and one Australian water management planning document. This mapping demonstrates the potential of metaphor analysis, with further methodological and praxis development, to support the new ways of thinking and acting that are needed to challenge deeply held social and cultural norms of linear, rather than systemic, causality. We suggest that metaphor has the potential to help practitioners expose and examine reified operational frameworks and practices, and to change those that hinder adaptive and systemic praxis.

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Institutionalising social learning: Towards systemic and adaptive governance

Environmental Science & Policy, 2015

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In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry

Research Policy, 2014

Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens ... more Processes of designing for systemic innovation for sustainable development (SD) through the lens of three long-term case studies are reported. All case studies, which originated from the SLIM (Social Learning for the Integrated Management and Sustainable Use of Water at Catchment Scale) Project, funded within the EU Fifth Framework Program (2001-2004), constitute inquiry pathways that are explored using a critical incident approach. The initial starting conditions for each inquiry pathway are compared; significant pathway dependencies are identified which foster the development of social learning processes locally, but constrain their uptake and embedding across the wider system of interest. In the first case study, in England & Wales, promising developments in the application of social learning approaches to river basin planning over an initial 3-year period were subsequently marginalised, only to resurface towards the end of the 10-year period of study. In the second, South African case study, significant spaces for social learning and innovation in integrated water resources management were opened up over a five year period but closed down again, primarily as the result of lack of policy support by national government. The third, Italian, case study was designed to assess options for adapting to climate change by opening up new learning spaces between researchers, stakeholders and policy makers. A case for investing in local level systemic innovation through social-learning praxis design approaches and in learning processes around well contextualised case-studies is supported. However, concomitant investment by policy makers in social learning as an alternative, but complementary, governance mechanism for systemic innovation for SD is needed.

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Building ‘learning catchments’ for integrated catchment managing: designing learning systems based on experiences in the UK and South Africa

Water Science and Technology, 2009

We examine challenges and opportunities for developing ‘learning systems’ for integrated catchmen... more We examine challenges and opportunities for developing ‘learning systems’ for integrated catchment managing (ICMg) drawing on our experiences in two contexts: UK and South Africa (SA). Our research question is: what is it that we would have to experience to claim that a catchment was a learning catchment? We suggest that any valid answer to this question will arise in social relations in context-determined ways. From this perspective ICMg is an emergent ‘performance’ of stakeholders engaged in mutual action, or social learning (SL), in which understandings and practices are transformed in situation improving ways. These questions are relevant given recent reviews suggesting that implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is not nurturing adaptive management. Our European and SA experiences demonstrate that it is possible to invest in social learning as a governance mechanism for water managing, but key constraints exist. Our SA work based on (i) appreciating the ...

Sustainable Catchment Managing in a Climate Changing World: New Integrative Modalities for Connecting Policy Makers, Scientists and Other Stakeholders

Water Resources Management, 2011

This paper characterises some of the main issues confronting water-catchment managing in a climat... more This paper characterises some of the main issues confronting water-catchment managing in a climate-changing world and addresses widespread concerns about the lack of connectivity between science, policy making and implementation. The paper's arguments are 'framed' within a paradigm of systemic and adaptive governing, regulating, planning and managing understood as a nested systemic hierarchy. It is argued that climate change adaptation is best understood as a coevolutionary dynamic, principally, but not exclusively between human beings and the biophysical world. Two forms of 'knowledge brokerage'

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Trusting Emergence: Some Experiences of Learning about Integrated Catchment Science with the Environment Agency of England and Wales

Water Resources Management, 2009

Ray L. (2010). Trusting emergence: some experiences of learning about integrated catchment scienc... more

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Insights into Operationalizing Communities of Practice from SSM-Based Inquiry Processes

Systemic Practice and Action Research, 2012

Two systemic inquiries, based on soft systems methodology (SSM), into the potential for using com... more Two systemic inquiries, based on soft systems methodology (SSM), into the potential for using community of practice (CoP) theory by an Australian-government created research and development corporation to change its knowledge management (KM) strategy, are reported. Key staff were engaged in the inquiry into how to build a third-order KM strategy based on CoPs; an exploration of key published work on CoPs yielded four SSM activity models-'being a community practice system'; 'doing the work of imagination sub-system'; 'doing the work of alignment sub-system' and 'doing the work of engagement sub-system'. These models can be used as heuristics to aid the purposeful design of CoPs in other settings. SSM, enacted as a systemic inquiry, can be understood as a form of systemic action research, which was well equipped to deal with CoP theory and, when enacted participatively, can generate important systemic insights. The inquiry began the process of fostering an appreciation of third order KM but, on the evidence available, did not lead to ongoing commitment to a CoPs-based KM strategy. Future research should acknowledge how the framing of research situations influences the research process, the importance of the design of practice change settings and the limited evidence for purposeful interventions leading to successful CoPs.

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Deliberation and Inclusion: Vehicles for Increasing Trust in UK Public Governance?

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2001

Arguments in favour of participative democratic practices have been promoted stridently in recent... more Arguments in favour of participative democratic practices have been promoted stridently in recent years as trust in existing political institutions has receded. These arguments assume the declining ability of elected members to represent increasingly diverse constituencies in a period of rapid change, and a sense of powerlessness among citizens in the face of distant economic and political forces. There have been few attempts to review the available empirical evidence on whether deliberative and inclusionary processes lead to ‘better’ decisions. For the United Kingdom, evidence is limited, except in the land-use planning field, and we argue that in present circumstances their primary role should be to stimulate wider civil engagement as a means of restoring trust. ‘Better’ decisions will then follow. However, barriers to their acceptance remain, not least in the need to create sufficient incentive for citizens to participate and in the requirement that established economic and polit...

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Learning to start systemically in environmental decision making

Dare we jump off Arnstein's ladder? Social learning as a new policy paradigm

In Analysing Collaborative and Deliberative Forms of Governance

and other research outputs Public policy that does the right thing rather than the wrong thing ri... more

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Partnerships for action in river catchment governance. A case study in the Irwell, UK

The research presented in this report was developed under the Natural Course project, and funded ... more The research presented in this report was developed under the Natural Course project, and funded by DEFRA as part of the EU LIFE IP programme (LIFE14 IPE/UK/000027). The 10-year project is led by the Environment Agency, United Utilities, Rivers Trust, Greater Manchester Combined Authorities (GMCA) and Natural England, who are working together to seek cost-effective solutions to protect and improve our water environment, now and for the future. For further information on the Natural Course project, please visit www.naturalcourse.co.uk. We would like to thank the research participants, who shared their knowledge and experiences in catchment management, and their organisations for enabling their participation.

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A review of the Defra Catchment Based Approach Policy Framework

Drought: understanding and reducing vulnerability through monitoring and early warning systems

As part of the Belmont Forum funded international DRIVER research project on linking indicators t... more As part of the Belmont Forum funded international DRIVER research project on linking indicators to impacts to improve drought monitoring and early warning systems (MEWs), a stakeholder workshop was held on 17th March 2015 in Wallingford, UK. The workshop was attended by representatives of various UK organisations with an interest in drought and MEWs and DRIVER researchers from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UK), Open University (UK), University of Freiburg (Germany), National Drought Mitigation Center (USA) and CSIRO (Australia). The aims of the workshop were to introduce participants to the DRIVER project and recent RCUK drought projects; engage with stakeholders’ experiences, understandings and needs in relation to droughts; and identify needs for future MEWs. The design of the workshop was based on a commitment to social learning. It comprised a mix of presentations and interactive sessions using innovative techniques to develop collective insights, enabling participants t...

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Teaching Environmental Management Competencies Online: Towards “Authentic” Collaboration?

European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning, 2017

Environmental Management (EM) is taught in many Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Most thi... more Environmental Management (EM) is taught in many Higher Education Institutions in the UK. Most this provision is studied full-time on campuses by younger adults preparing themselves for subsequent employment, but not necessarily as environmental managers, and this experience can be very different from the complexities of real-life situations. This formal academic teaching or initial professional development in EM is supported and enhanced by training and continuing professional development from the major EM Institutes in the UK orientated to a set of technical and transferable skills or competencies expected of professional practitioners. In both cases there can be a tendency to focus on the more tractable, technical aspects of EM which are important, but may prove insufficient for EM in practice. What is also necessary, although often excluded, is an appreciation of, and capacity to deal with, the messiness and unpredictability of real world EM situations involving many different ac...

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Stakeholder Coinquiries on Drought Impacts, Monitoring, and Early Warning Systems

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2016

What: The goal of the Drought Impacts: Vulnerability Thresholds in Monitoring and Early-Warning R... more What: The goal of the Drought Impacts: Vulnerability Thresholds in Monitoring and Early-Warning Research (DrIVER) project is to understand the links between natural (hydrometeorological) drought and ecological response and socioeconomic impacts to aid in developing enhanced drought early warning systems (DEWS). Three stakeholder workshops convened in the U.S., U.K., and Australia enabled learning about participants' experiences of droughts and drought impacts and identified future needs for DEWS. The U.S. water supply case study engaged 27 community water suppliers and state, federal, and private advisors in the Neuse and Cape Fear River basins in North Carolina. The U.K. workshop involved 34 national and regional stakeholders across the water supply, environmental regulation, agriculture, energy, and health sectors. The Australian workshop brought together 30 mostly state-based participants from the water suppliers and water users sectors. Collective insights are reported.

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Kevin Collins

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