Davids Rashieda, Scheelbeek Pauline, Sobratee Nafiisa, Green Rosemary, Häesler Barbara, Mabhaudhi Tafadzwanashe, Chatterjee Suparna, Venkateshmurthy Nikhil Srinivasapura, Mace Georgina, Dangour Alan, Slotow Rob
Centre for Transformative Agricultural and Food Systems, School of Agriculture, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 3201, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK.
Sustainability. 2021 Nov 10;13(22):12427. doi: 10.3390/su132212427.
This paper highlights the potential for learning and virtual collaboration in international research teams to contribute towards sustainability goals. Previous research confirmed the environmental benefits of carbon savings from international virtual conferences. This paper adds the social and economic dimensions by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to measure the constraints and benefits for personal development, economic costs, efficiency and team learning of holding international virtual conferences (VCs). Using the Sustainable and Healthy Food Systems (SHEFS) research programme as a case study, we analysed VC participant survey data to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of VCs. We estimated 'saved' GHG emissions, costs, and time, of using VCs as an alternative for a planned in-person meeting in Chennai, India. Hosting VCs reduced North-South, gender, and researcher inclusivity concerns, financial and travelling time costs, and substantially reduced emissions. For one international meeting with 107 participants, changing to a virtual format reduced the per capita GHG emissions to half the annual global average, and avoided 60% of travel costs. The benefits of VCs outweighed weaknesses. The main strengths were inclusivity and access, with 20% more early/mid-career researchers attending. This study identified opportunities for international research partnerships to mitigate their carbon footprint (environmental benefit) and enhance inclusivity of early/mid-career, women and Global South participants (social benefit), whilst continuing to deliver effective collaborative research meetings (economic benefit). In doing so, we present a holistic view of sustainability opportunities for virtual collaboration.
本文强调了国际研究团队中的学习与虚拟协作对实现可持续发展目标的潜力。先前的研究证实了国际虚拟会议在碳减排方面的环境效益。本文通过结合定性和定量方法，增加了社会和经济维度，以衡量举办国际虚拟会议（VCs）对个人发展、经济成本、效率和团队学习的限制与益处。以可持续健康食品系统（SHEFS）研究项目为例，我们分析了虚拟会议参与者的调查数据，以确定虚拟会议的优势、劣势、机会和威胁。我们估算了将虚拟会议作为印度钦奈一场计划中的面对面会议的替代方式所“节省”的温室气体排放量、成本和时间。举办虚拟会议减少了南北差异、性别和研究人员包容性方面的担忧，降低了财务和旅行时间成本，并大幅减少了排放量。对于一场有107名参与者的国际会议，改为虚拟形式将人均温室气体排放量降至全球年平均水平的一半，并避免了60%的差旅费。虚拟会议的好处超过了劣势。主要优势在于包容性和参与度，早期/中期职业研究人员的参会人数增加了20%。本研究确定了国际研究伙伴关系的机会，以减轻其碳足迹（环境效益），提高早期/中期职业、女性和全球南方参与者的包容性（社会效益），同时继续举办有效的合作研究会议（经济效益）。在此过程中，我们展示了虚拟协作可持续发展机会的整体观点。
