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Article History

Received: 2 October 2025

Accepted: 8 September 2026

First Online: 23 September 2026

Declarations

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval: This research has received ethical approval from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) Human Subjects Committee (HSC) which is LBNL’s Institutional Review Board (IRB #00006447). Approval was received prior to commencement of the data collection and prior to commencement of each engagement. Approval was received under two protocol IDs - Pro00023183 and Pro00023220. Pro00023183 was approved on 02/06/2020 (MM/DD/YYYY) and covered participant recruitment and data collection spanning from 02/06/2020 to 02/06/2021. Pro00023220 was approved on 01/15/2021 with participant recruitment and data collection spanning from 01/15/2021 and ongoing as the project is continuing (so this protocol covers all engagements after 01/15/2021). The scope of approval included the recruitment of participants, implementation of the engagements (focus groups and surveys), collection of data, analysis of the data, and reporting of results. This research (under both protocols) was determined to be “Exempt” Human Subjects Research by the LBNL HSC. All the research procedures and engagements were performed in accordance with relevant federal regulation, state and local laws, and the United States Department of Energy directives set forth by LBNL’s Human Subjects Committee IRB. All research was conducted in the United States, so no other local approval is applicable.

Informed consent: This research (under both protocols Pro00023183 and Pro00023220) was determined to be “Exempt” from the Common Rule (category 2(ii)) by the LBNL Human Subjects Committee and therefore does not require written and signed informed consent. A modified consent procedure was used according to LBNL Human Subjects Committee protocols Pro00023183 and Pro00023220. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the research engagements (discussions and surveys) through sharing a consent form. All participants were above the age of 18 and therefore able to provide consent for themselves. Participants were asked to review the consent form and were notified that subsequent participation in the research engagements will be taken as consent. Engagement facilitators (KJ, SB and ADJ) shared the consent form via email as well as at the beginning of each engagement, both prior to participation in the research. The consent form included details of the purpose, background and funding for the research, the voluntary nature of the engagement, specifics of the engagement procedures, risks or benefits, storage of data and confidentiality, details of use of data for research and publications, etc. All participants were fully informed that findings from the engagements may be used in research publications but will be done in a manner that protects their anonymity. Informed consent was obtained separately for each focus group discussion and survey that form a part of this research. Dates when the informed consent was obtained are as follows: Pre- workshop survey on storyline research ideas and feedback from practitioners - consent obtained on 02/28/2020 and 03/03/2020; Kick-off workshop and co-produced research plan discussions for each sub-project- consent obtained on 03/17/2020 and 03/18/2020; Focus Group Discussion 1, Practitioner Survey 1 and Scientists Survey 1 for each sub-project - consent obtained on 08/20/2020,09/04/2020 and 01/22/2021; Focus Group Discussion 2, Practitioner Survey 2 and Scientists Survey 2 for each sub-project- consent obtained on 04/09/2021, 04/12/2021 and 07/26/2021; Focus Group Discussion 3, Practitioner Survey 3 and Scientists Survey 3 for each sub-project - consent obtained on 05/27/2022, 06/01/2022 and 08/12/2022.