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In Episode 4, the Season 2 finale of the STARTcast, we discusses the FRACTAL Principles with John Mfune, Deon Shekuza, Lapo Magole, and Genito Maure. The FRACTAL Principles are an outcome of FRACTAL’s transdisciplinary processes. As the emergent Principles became clear, they helped to shape and guide engagements in the nine southern African cities where FRACTAL worked. They sum up the way in which FRACTAL approached working in these cities and it is hoped that they can provide a framework for future transdisciplinary projects.

In Episode 3 of the second series of the STARTcast, Mzime Murisa, a Program Specialist at START, discusses the role of embedded researchers in the FRACTAL project with Rudo Mamombe, who was the Embedded Researcher in Harare, Zimbabwe. In her discussion she also includes comments from Dr Anna Taylor, Dr Lulu van Rooyen and Brenda Mwalukanga.

Season 2 Episode 2 features a discussion between FRACTAL’s program coordinator, Alice McClure, and three FRACTAL researchers:  Dr. Anna Taylor, researcher at the University of Cape Town focusing on climate adaptation in cities, particularly developing a process-based understanding of how urban climate adaptation happens, is organized and governed;  Dr. Sukaina Bhurwani, an interdisciplinary senior researcher with a background in social anthropology and computer science. She co-leads the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Climate Services Initiative and weADAPT platform; Dr. Gilbert Siame is a senior researcher who heads the Centre for Urban Research at the University of Zambia. He was integrally involved in the design of transdisciplinary research in Lusaka and across FRACTAL more generally. Anna, Sukaina and Gilbert share their wealth of experiences from the learning lab approach and FRACTAL processes. They explain the concept of the labs and how these were engendered as collaborative spaces where stakeholders could come together, identify, define and co-explore burning issues as well as create solutions to the complex issues.

Season 2 Episode 1 features a discussion between START Program Specialist Dr. Mzime Ndebele-Murisa and three prominent climate scientists from the FRACTAL project: Dr. Chris Jack (Deputy Director at the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG), at the University of Cape Town, South Africa); Dr. Richard Jones (Science Fellow at the UK Met Office and a visiting professor at Oxford University); and Dr. Tamara Janes (Researcher in atmospheric sciences, monsoons and climate change adaptation). Together, these four focus on ‘climate distillation’ and narrative approaches used during the FRACTAL project to ensure climate information was both relevant and usable. The conversation explores decision making contexts, trust building and strengths and weaknesses of using Climate Risk Narratives (CRN) to co-produce relevant, plausible climate information and to communicate uncertainties in the climate data.

Episode 8 of the STARTcast is our listener feedback and reflections episode and the Season 1 finale. In this episode, we respond to your questions (courtesy of several returning guests), read listener feedback about the podcast, and share parting reflections on our first season of the STARTcast. 

Episode seven of the STARTcast features a conversation between START's Executive Director, Jon Padgham and Bruce Currie-Alder, Climate Change Program Leader at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a Canadian governmental organization that supports research in developing countries to promote sustainable growth, reduce poverty, and drive large-scale positive change. In this episode, Bruce and Jon revisit points and ideas raised throughout the first season of the STARTcast relating to current realities of research funding, potential future directions, and general insights into the proposal writing process - this time from a funder’s perspective.

Episode six of the STARTcast features a conversation between START Program Specialist, Dr. Mzime Ndebele-Murisa and Dr. Blane Harvey, an Assistant Professor and William Dawson Scholar at McGill University in Canada. Blane is also an associate of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in the UK. In this episode, Blane shares his experience and offers invaluable advice on research proposal review processes, why proposals get rejected, and how to deal with rejection including some of the lessons one can take away.

Episode five of the STARTcast features a conversation between START’s Sarah Schweizer and Dr. Natasha Udu-gama, Program Manager of International and Community Engagement at AGU’s Thriving Earth Exchange. Here, Natasha shares about community science and how scientists and communities can co-write proposals  to do science together to advance community priorities.

Episode four of the STARTcast features a conversation between START’s Dr. Mary Thompson-Hall and Jesse DeMaria-Kinney, Deputy Director and Senior Expert on Climate Change Adaptation, Nature-based Solutions, & Research-for-Impact at PlanAdapt. Here, Jesse talks about his work on Research-for-Impact, or Research-into-Use and how he works with scientists to help them strengthen the impact of their work and to better communicate those impacts.

Episode three of the STARTcast is a discussion between START’s program specialist Dr. Mzime Ndebele-Murisa and Ms. Alice McClure, the Project Coordinator of the Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands (FRACTAL) program which is one of DFID/NERC’s five projects under the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA). Alice is based at the University of Cape Town’s Climate System Analysis Group. Before this post Alice worked with regional initiatives in both Africa and Asia.  Here, Alice shares her experience and advice around issues and challenges of putting together a budget and the budget narrative particularly when working with diverse teams, stakeholders and countries. She provides great tips based on her experience, and what she has seen working. Alice was also part of the consultative group who provided feedback on issues and challenges that are faced by early and mid-career scientists in writing scientific proposals which helped to set the agenda for this season of the STARTcast.

Episode two of the STARTcast features a conversation between START’s Dr. Mary Thompson-Hall and Dr. Ed Carr, Professor and Director of the International Development, Community, and Environment Department and of the Humanitarian Response and Development Lab at Clark University. Ed also serves as an Adviser on  Adaptation for the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel, of the Global Environment Facility. Here, Ed shares about his experiences with convening successful, diverse research teams and what he sees for the future during a time of increasingly virtual interactions.

On the first episode of the STARTcast, we’re chatting with Dr. Chandni Singh, a Research Consultant with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. Chandni shares with us about her experiences and challenges with writing scientific proposals, and we will use her feedback and that of other early and mid-career scientists to set the agenda for the rest of Season 1 of the STARTcast.