Abstract

In a world where there is increasing demand for solutions to urgent and complex ecological questions requiring multidisciplinary participation and transdisciplinary insight, but where the abundance of information has become overwhelming, the analysis and synthesis centre has emerged recently as an effective and arguably indispensible tool. Using staff with multidimensional skills and considerable experience, the synthesis centre provides a supportive environment for groups of people with diverse disciplinary, organisational, cultural and geographical origins to work together using existing data to address big science questions. It fills a niche in time-pressed and discipline-centred lives, enabling wisdom to be drawn from a heterogeneous mass of data.