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Cultivating a more dynamic relationship between science and policy is essential for responding to complex social challenges such as sustainability. One approach to doing so is to "span the boundaries" between science and decision making and create a more comprehensive and inclusive knowledge exchange process. The exact definition and role of boundary spanning, however, can be nebulous. Indeed, boundary spanning often gets conflated and confused with other approaches to connecting science and policy, such as science communication, applied science, and advocacy, which can hinder progress in the field of boundary spanning. To help overcome this, in this perspective, we present the outcomes from a recent workshop of boundary-spanning practitioners gathered to (1) articulate a definition of what it means to work at this interface ("boundary spanning") and the types of activities it encompasses; (2) present a value proposition of these efforts to build better relationships between science and policy; and (3) identify opportunities to more effectively mainstream boundary-spanning activities. Drawing on our collective experiences, we suggest that boundary spanning has the potential to increase the efficiency by which useful research is produced, foster the capacity to absorb new evidence and perspectives into sustainability decision-making, enhance research relevance for societal challenges, and open new policy windows. We provide examples from our work that illustrate this potential. By offering these propositions for the value of boundary spanning, we hope to encourage a more robust discussion of how to achieve evidence-informed decision-making for sustainability.

Theater has been used as an educational tool since the Great Depression era, and it is currently considered an effective tool for health promotion and reducing risk-taking behaviors among youth. Theater projects are well suited for communicating prevention messages to youth audiences because they can depict real-life settings and characters who can change during the performance in different ways as the story unfolds. Although theater-as-education may be effective for addressing a wide range of health and risk behaviors, previous programs that have used this strategy have experienced limitations. First, many programs fail to use a theoretical foundation, thereby ignoring principles that can be transferred to teaching and practice settings. Second, theater-as-education projects often lack systematic assessment of their impacts on audience attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, so the effects of these programs are not well documented. Last, many theater-delivered programs fail to employ a community-based process, which limits their contextual validity. This article describes the development and assessment of the theater-as-education component of a prevention marketing campaign that addresses attitudes toward tobacco and alcohol use, the demonstration of refusal skills, and the clarification of norms regarding use of these products among young adolescents. This program addresses above limitations, and it provides a replicable model for developing a theater-as-education production for schools and communities to follow. (Contains 3 figures.)

Irresponsible and inaccessible web design causes unnecessary problems to certain website users. By applying the web content accessibility guidelines to a website the amount of possible users who can successfully view the content of that site will increase especially for those who are in the disabled and older adult categories of online users. We present the results of assessing the compliance of a selection of websites with guidelines set out by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). It was found that most sites evaluated were inaccessible to those with disabilities. Only one of the selected sites passed all three priority levels set out by the WAI. In many cases, minor modifications to sites will make them accessible to people with disabilities. Therefore it can only be speculated that the reasons for lack of conformance may vary from lack of awareness of the issue, time constraints or the general stress of having to keep up with new technologies. Companies who overlook users with disabilities however may be doing so at long-term risk to their legal position, public image and ultimately business success. (Contains 4 figures.)

Abstract Interdiffusion phenomena between adjacent materials are highly prevalent in semiconductor device architectures and can present a major reliability challenge for the industry. To fully capture these phenomena, experimental approaches must go beyond static and post‐mortem studies to include in situ and in‐operando setups. Here, soft and hard X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (SXPS and HAXPES) is used to monitor diffusion in real‐time across a proxy device. The device consists of a Si/SiO2/TixW1−x(300 nm)/Cu(25 nm) thin film material stack, with the TixW1−x film (x = 0.054, 0.115, 0.148) acting as a diffusion barrier between Si and Cu. The interdiffusion is monitored through the continuous collection of spectra whilst in situ annealing to 673 K. Ti within the TiW is found to be highly mobile during annealing, diffusing out of the barrier and accumulating at the Cu surface. Increasing the Ti concentration within the TixW1−x film increases the quantity of accumulated Ti, and Ti is first detected at the Cu surface at temperatures as low as 550 K. Surprisingly, at low Ti concentrations (x = 0.054), W is also mobile and diffuses alongside Ti. By monitoring the Ti 1s core level with HAXPES, the surface‐accumulated Ti was observed to undergo oxidation even under ultra‐high vacuum conditions, highlighting the reactivity of Ti in this system. These results provide crucial evidence for the importance of diffusion barrier composition on their efficacy during device application, delivering insights into the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness and limitations.