Copyright © 2007 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Deconchat, M., A. Gibon, A. Cabanettes, G. du Bus de Warnaffe, M. Hewison, E. Garine, A. Gavaland, J.- P. Lacombe, S. Ladet, C. Monteil, A. Ouin, J.-P. Sarthou, A. Sourdril, and G. Balent. 2007. How to set up a research framework to analyze social–ecological interactive processes in a rural landscape. Ecology and Society 12(1): 15. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art15/ Research How to Set Up a Research Framework to Analyze Social–Ecological Interactive Processes in a Rural Landscape Marc Deconchat 1 , Annick Gibon 1 , Alain Cabanettes 1 , Gaétan du Bus de Warnaffe 1 , Mark Hewison 2 , Eric Garine 3 , André Gavaland 1 , Jean-Paul Lacombe 1 , Sylvie Ladet 1 , Claude Monteil 1 , Annie Ouin 1 , Jean-Pierre Sarthou 1 , Anne Sourdril 1 , and Gérard Balent 1 ABSTRACT. Interdisciplinary research frameworks can be useful in providing answers to the environmental challenges facing rural environments, but concrete implementation of them remains empirical and requires better control. We present our practical experience of an interdisciplinary research project dealing with non-industrial private forestry in rural landscapes. The theoretical background, management, and methodological aspects, as well as results of the project, are presented in order to identify practical key factors that may influence its outcomes. Landscape ecology plays a central role in organizing the project. The efforts allocated for communication between scientists from different disciplines must be clearly stated in order to earn reciprocal trust. Sharing the same nested sampling areas, common approaches, and analytical tools (GIS) is important, but has to be balanced by autonomy for actual implementation of field work and data analysis in a modular and evolving framework. Data sets are at the heart of the collaboration and GIS is necessary to ensure their long-term management and sharing. The experience acquired from practical development of such projects should be shared more often in networks of teams to compare their behavior and identify common rules of functioning. Key Words: fragmented forest; interdisciplinary research; landscape ecology INTRODUCTION The close links between human activities and environmental processes call into question our collective ability to identify, within the complex functioning of social systems, what impact human activities have on ecological phenomena and to propose operational responses to manage them (Southwood 1995, Legay 2006). Rural areas are facing rapid changes and uncertainty in the agricultural and forestry fields that affect their future (Deffontaines et al. 1995). Finding effective answers to such issues is hampered by the difficulty in designing functional research frameworks to deal with such large and fuzzy questions (Sébillote 2001). Because they are both social and ecological in nature, these questions must be approached using an interdisciplinary framework that provides an integrative view (Holling 1998, 2001) of the reciprocal interactions between the two systems (Jollivet 1992, Boiffin 2004). However, creating interdisciplinary research frameworks is not simply a matter of juxtaposing disciplines, nor of forcing a continuous interaction—and even less that of an illusory combination—but rather one of developing a dynamic and specific operating mode for research (Delattre 1985). Defining rules to build and manage such interdisciplinary research frameworks better, faster, and more effectively represents, in its own right, a useful quest to respond to current environmental challenges. We believe that a method to set up an interdisciplinary research framework must be developed from a theoretical analysis of how research is conducted, dealing with questions of scales and models (Holling 2001), but also taking into consideration the practical constraints that strongly shape current research activities and yet have received less interest. We aim to identify some key practical factors for more efficiently setting up an interdisciplinary research project dealing with 1 UMR1201 Dynamiques Forestières dans l'Espace Rural, INRA, INPT-ENSAT, 2 UR35 Centre d’Ecologie de la Faune Sauvage, INRA, 3 UMR7535 Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, CNRS