White Papers
White Papers are due to the conference organizer on February 25th, 2011.
A sample white paper can be found here (PDF format). Contributors should aim for a white paper between one and two pages in length.
Generally, 'white papers' are used as pre-policy documents where different stakeholders are asked to report their vision for resolving certain problems in advance of a meeting for hammering out specific policy details. These statements are written down and circulated prior to meeting, so that the various stakeholder's positions are known in advance, giving some prior insight into the proceedings. In this instance, as we are not working towards a specific policy directive, we are using this format to bridge temporal and semantic differences as we are working within a short period (two days) and come from different research backgrounds. Our white papers, taken together with the results of the time spent in the workshop, will be integrated into the edited volume as an Afterword that addresses the commonalities and distinctions between the different methods discussed during the conference. By the 25th of February 2011 I want to have, in hand, a one to two page statement from each participating researcher or research group that I can circulate prior to the meeting. These should be statements that include the following three sections:
1). A succinct individual or research team statement addressing how methods and theory are specifically linked to understanding the cause(s), progression, or effects of the second transition on the region of interest that are relevant to each participant’s research frame. This should be about two paragraphs, with one outlining specifics of the research and a second detailing the methods used to deal with the research question(s).
2). If you have engaged the public or researchers/entities outside of your immediate disciplinary/regional ‘comfort zone,’ what data have people been most interested in and what might you and your research group do to maintain or enhance this research line/area of applied interest? This might be either a paragraph or a title-heading list with some sentences to explain the connection between the dataset/research initiative and its reception.
3). An individual or research team list of different methodologies used by each participant to answer questions related to human-environment synergies in regards to changes in health. Which of these sets of methods worked and which did not? Are there some sets of derived historical, social, or natural science data that you find articulate particularly well with epidemiological data? What, if any, are future initiatives that you or your team may employ to enhance work completed or data analysis achieved thus far? This should be a simple title-heading list, with a few sentences that explain utility; citations should be included where relevant.