Identifying Priority Questions for Soil Science Research in the 21st Century

Students and early career soil scientists have a very important stake in the future of soil science research and in the advancement of this discipline in our rapidly evolving society. However, advancing soil science research and establishing its relevance in the public arena is fraught with unique challenges. Considering the ever-growing expectations, shrinking financial resources, and declining numbers of graduating soil scientists represents an undesirable but realistic situation. New strategies are urgently needed to reverse this trend and turn those challenges into opportunities. To address this challenge, we have proposed a strategic initiative to identify priority questions for contemporary soil science research. It is designed as a cohesive and highly collaborative exercise and requires active participation from all members of the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)—including you! As graduate students and SSSA members, we have embarked on this initiative with an expectation that it will serve as a helpful guide for contemporary soil science research and promote growth of soil science as a professional discipline. Such guidance will be immensely helpful for alignment of soil science research to key societal needs and will benefit graduate students. A recent white paper—“Securing a Future for Soil Science” (Or et al., 1) identified this gap and emphasized the necessity for question-driven soil science research instead of a discipline-driven research approach. Students and early career researchers often face the challenge of identifying novel research directions that are relevant and could have the broadest impact on our society. They are also expected to accomplish ambitious research goals within the confines of available resources. Quite often, the excitement for research gradually morphs into indifference, and in many instances, the aspiration to conduct novel research gradually dissipates. This has had substantial implications for students’ motivation to proceed with a soil science career and, possibly, has been a cause for the observed decline in the number of students and early career soil scientists. We hope that the outcome from this initiative will help in addressing such challenges. We intend to adopt a collaborative approach to identify and compile the top 50 questions for soil science research in the 21st century. It will be a three-stage, multi-step process (Fig. 1). Soil science professionals and students who are current members of SSSA will be invited to submit questions (maximum of two per person) on a voluntary basis via an online survey platform. Question submission will take place in five pre-determined thematic categories with a possibility of submittal in two categories per individual. Flowchart showing the three stages of the project to identify and compile the top 50 questions for soil science research in the 21st century. Graduate students Julius Adewopo (left) and Rupesh Bhomia have developed a strategic initiative to identify priority questions for soil science research. The core working group will collate and scrutinize submitted questions to choose the most important 25 questions per thematic area. A session will be organized at 2012 SSSA Annual Meeting where these 25 questions will be open for discussion, and comments/suggestions from attendees will be noted for revisions. Subsequently, these 25 questions will be sent to the expert panel for voting. The expert panel will be a team of experienced soil scientists and, possibly, science and policy experts specializing in each thematic area. A final vote count will be given to each question, and top 10 questions in each thematic area will be selected. These 10 questions will be regarded as equally important and will not be ranked in importance to avoid disproportionate attention and focus on only few top questions. A manuscript with all priority questions in each thematic area will be prepared and submitted for peer review and consideration to be published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal. The final outcome of this project will be a peer-reviewed manuscript that will list and introduce the most pressing research questions for soil science, based on a collaborative expert consultation process. It is intended to provide a unique avenue to build on previous efforts that have broached emerging themes and future directions for soil science. Furthermore, it will complement ongoing efforts to highlight the pivotal role of soil science in a solution-seeking society by moving beyond broad thematic focus and steer soil science research towards collaboratively identified, pertinent, testable, and innovative research questions. This initiative may serve as a precursor of a new era in collaborative research among young and seasoned professionals, in what could be a seminal exercise of realigning future research directions. We also anticipate that it will set an example for other students and early career members and show how integration and consultation between multiple stakeholders, under the auspices of the professional society, could transform challenges into opportunities. Also, we expect that this will add value to the efforts to shape the future direction of soil sciences in relation to environmental sustainability and could be a practical step to raise the scientific and professional credibility of soil science. The success of this initiative hinges on active participation of all SSSA members and soil science professionals. The online question submission site will be active shortly, and we urge all of you to submit questions. Also, we are seeking soil science students from different institutions to join the working group. Involvement in this project is simple and requires slight time commitment. Most of the coordination will be via online platforms; however, it is anticipated that student members will follow through with this project and significantly contribute towards the overall implementation. Interested students should contact us (adewopo@ufl.edu or rbhomia@ufl.edu) with a short resume and brief note about your motivation to join the team within 10 days of this publication. This is an outstanding opportunity for you to contribute and be part of a project that may become a guiding manual for the future of soil science research!