Top 20 Alberta Parks Research Questions

The ACSRC facilitated a research project during the Summer/Fall 2012 to create a list of relevant, feasible and implementable Parks priority research questions. The focus of this project was to explore how the Alberta Parks department was able to adapt to change and better themselves in the areas of health, environmental, education, and many other factors.

In Phase 2 of this project, provincial and regional (East Central) workshops were held. During the course of the workshops, participants from research, policy, non-governmental and conservation communities engaged in an internationally recognized consensus-based exercise that generated the top 20 research questions from an edited list of submission collected in Phase 1.

In Phase 1 of the project, an online submission form was set-up for a 6-week period. Representatives from research, policy, non-governmental and rural communities were invited to submit what they saw as the most pressing or important questions for researchers to inform research and public policy issues in Alberta parks. Participants were asked to ensure their question submission met the following criteria:

  1. Be answerable through an implementable and realistic research design;
  2. Be answerable on the basis of fact;
  3. Be of a spatial and temporal scale that can be addressed realistically;
  4. Not be answerable with a yes/no or "it depends";
  5. Contain a subject of intervention, an intervention and a measurable/evaluated effect related to that intervention or policy; and
  6. Increase the efficacy, scope or efficiency of policy or practice related to Alberta Parks

The results and resulting reports aim to help researchers focus on projects operationalizing the science strategy of Alberta Parks. The responses havel been compiled and presented giving credit where due to workshop attendees and contributors who were involved in the process.

This project was made possible in part by the 2009 Memorandum of Understanding between the Augustana Faculty (University of Alberta) and Tourism, Parks, and Recreation. The Memorandum established a cooperative working relationship that seeks to assist student training, applied research, business and development.