The index lists the terms used, along with how those terms are defined for the purposes of i2Insights blog and repository.
There is also additional information about the index.
A – G
What motivates and affects the evolution of a person’s occupational status in a university or research organisation. Also includes the learning involved in newcomers becoming experienced in a research or academic area (also known as legitimate peripheral participation).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘academic career development’.
Consistently acting to the highest standards of honesty and ethical principles in research, teaching and learning, including avoiding conflicts of interest, plagiarism, fabrication and falsification and, where promised, maintaining confidentiality.
What is measured, valued and recognised in the work of university faculty and researchers in a variety of organisations. Includes metrics and criteria for promotion and tenure.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘academic reward systems’.
Being responsible for one’s actions, performance, behaviours, decisions and more. Includes taking the blame for poor outcomes based on one’s actions, decisions etc. Applies to individuals and groups (for example, researchers as whole).
These blog posts address topics that are relevant both to ‘action research’ and other research and education addressing complex societal and environmental problems. Action research is a philosophy and a family of methodologies that pursue change (action) and research outcomes at the same time.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘action research (general relevance)’.
These blog posts address topics that are relevant only to ‘action research’ and not other research and education addressing complex societal and environmental problems. Action research is a philosophy and a family of methodologies that pursue change (action) and research outcomes at the same time.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘action research (specific)‘.
Adaptation is both an adjustment to actual or expected change and the adjustments required to achieve change, with some blog posts focusing more on one than the other. The former adjustments do not aim to influence the change itself, but rather to moderate or avoid harm and to exploit beneficial opportunities. Adaptation may require on-going flexibility where there is on-going change.
A structured, iterative process of managing a resource, environment or system under conditions of uncertainty, while also undertaking a learning process to improve future management.
Needs based evolution of skills and know-how by balancing traditional and modern technical and other knowledge to develop resilient social-ecological systems.
Activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions in a particular way.
Networks of allies who share the same views about how a policy should be designed and implemented and act together to achieve the desired outcome. For any given policy there may be two or more advocacy coalitions seeking different outcomes.
Building computer simulations of the actions and interactions through prescribed rules of individuals and/or collective entities (such as organisations or groups), known as agents.
Method for assessing the position of policy actors on an issue requiring change, especially if they agree or disagree with a proposed action (alignment) and if they are active on the issue (interest). The matrix helps those planning the action determine how they should interact with the policy actors (influence).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘alignment, interest and influence matrix (AIIM)’.
From Ken Wilber’s integral theory. As used in i2Insights, the focus is on only part of the model, namely the four-quadrant grid with two axes: interior-exterior and individual-collective.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘All quadrants all levels (AQAL) model’.
Openness to more than one interpretation.
There are two uses in i2Insights. A cognitive process useful in problem solving. It involves reasoning by exploring the relationship between prior experience and the current problem or, more generally, transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another. There is also a more common use, which is a linguistic expression comparing things with similar features to help explain an idea.
This framework developed at The Australian National University (ANU) provides a comprehensive and systematic approach to building expertise in transdisciplinary problem solving, recognising that such problem solving has six characteristics; it is change-oriented, systemic, context-based, pluralistic, interactive, and integrative.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘ANU framework for transdisciplinary problem solving’.
Strengths-based theory and approach to move individuals, teams, organisations or societies to a shared vision for the future and self-determined change.
A range of tools to assist decision making when problems are not well defined or when available information is insufficient for reliable quantitative analysis. The tools are based on conceptual distinctions and logical reasoning.
Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 description of 8 levels of public participation in government decision making.
The physical expression of creativity in objects, environments and experiences which are beautiful or have emotional power. Includes painting, sculpture, architecture, music, theatre, film, dance, literature.
For individuals, assumptions are essentially mental models.
For theories, methods and models, assumptions are generally simplifications that are an important element of allowing the theory, method or model to be constructed and that affect how useful it is.
Informing and/or educating a group of people about an issue. The assumption is that this will change their attitudes, behaviours and/or beliefs and is an essential first step in driving social change.
Philosophical theory and investigation on the nature of value, especially what is good and worthy in life. Axiology incorporates ethics (theory of morality) and aesthetics (theory of taste and of beauty), as well as other forms of value.
Nine clusters of behavioural traits, with accompanying strengths and weaknesses, that describe the main different ways people can contribute to teamwork. These are based on Meredith Belbin’s original work examining the range of behaviours required for teams to be effective.
Inclinations or prejudices for or against ideas, beliefs, people and groups in ways that are closed-minded and/or unfair. See also cognitive biases.
A classification of educational learning objectives in the cognitive, affective and sensory domains published in 1956 by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom. There have been subsequent modifications to this widely-used classification.
Using tools, methods, concepts or theories from one discipline in another discipline.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘borrowing (in interdisciplinarity)’.
Examination of what or who is included, excluded and marginalised, when problems are defined and/or stakeholders are chosen to engage with.
Ideas, artefacts, publications and other ‘objects’ that are used in collaborations to aid common understanding, integration and/or action. They are concrete enough for everyone to recognise and abstract enough to accommodate a range of researcher and/or stakeholder perspectives.
Institutionalised bodies or places to connect researchers with policy makers and/or other stakeholders to achieve one or more of the following: facilitate communication and mutual understanding, knowledge exchange, and develop long-term relationships and collaborations.
Complex problems and other open systems have no natural boundaries. Everything relevant cannot therefore be understood or acted on, so that artificial but necessary limits to what will be dealt with must be established.
Work undertaken by individuals or organisations to establish better communication, understanding and joint action among disciplines and stakeholder groups involved in a research environment.
A divergent thinking technique to generate many ideas, including quirky ones, which is used when creative thinking is required eg in problem solving.
A theoretical framework to measure societal development by focusing on the goals of a flourishing society, especially what people can do and be, rather than a society’s resources.
Description: Examples of how particular methods, concepts or other aspects of research integration and implementation were used to address complex societal or environmental problems. Cases can also describe challenges, unintended consequences or lessons learnt in using methods or concepts in particular circumstances.
Examples:
- Cristina Zurbriggen’s blog post Creating a pragmatic complexity culture / La creación de una cultura pragmática de la complejidad illustrates the application of the concept “pragmatic complexity culture” in soil protection regimes in Uruguay.
- Katrin Prager’s blog post A co-creation challenge: Aligning research and policy processes describes the challenges of aligning research and policy timelines and processes in a project with the Sachsen-Anhalt Ministry for Agriculture in Germany.
Various aspects of altering society and/or the environment, which may range from minor to transformational and which include, but do not necessarily lead to, improvement. Considerations include modifying policy and/or practice in government, business or civil society, as well as planning for the future.
Processes for considering changes that could be useful, their implementation and potential downsides.
Opposing alterations or suggested alterations to the status quo. This can be by, for example, individuals, groups or organisations. Resistance to change also occurs in natural and social systems.
Methodological framework to decolonise participation and collaboration in research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘circle of dialogue wisdom’.
The conduct of research by members of the general public, usually in collaboration with, or under the direction of, professional researchers.
Randomly selected citizens are presented with evidence and asked to deliberate and to recommend action on a contentious issue. There is a general overlap in aims with consensus conference although the processes differ.
An approach to learning where learners work together to build their knowledge. May be used to mean co-creation, co-design or co-production.
Stakeholders are involved in the research process, ranging from contributing ideas to being full partners in undertaking the research. May be used to mean co-construction, co-design, co-innovation or co-production.
Stakeholders are involved in designing the research and in the implementation of the results to ensure that it meets their needs. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-innovation or co-production.
Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that adversely affect decisions and judgments. They are usually unconscious and often result from the brain’s attempts to simplify information processing through mental shortcuts (heuristics).
Umbrella terms for various ways of representing diagrammatically an individual’s or group’s knowledge and ideas about how the world works (their mental models).
Stakeholders are involved in collaborative invention and possibly commercialisation of new products, processes or solutions. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-design or co-production.
Researchers and stakeholders working hard in an on-going way to interpret and reinterpret their partial understandings of each other.
A specific type of teamwork where participants aim to share decision making power and work in partnerships that are as equal as possible. Collaboration between researchers and stakeholders is also referred to as: co-construction, co-creation, co-design co-innovation or co-production.
The term “collaboration” is used much more loosely in many blog posts and the wider literature. That wider usage is indexed here as “teamwork.”
A structured set of questions to stimulate reflection, dialogue and agreement on three central dimensions of collaborative research: team management, team dynamics, and team communication.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘collaboration agreement template’.
Differential ability to engage in collaboration because of different access to knowledge and/or funding, different work practices, different role expectations and so on.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘collaboration asymmetry’.
Organisations going beyond collaboration to work together to create lasting solutions to a social problem by establishing a centralised infrastructure, staff dedicated to the larger effort and a structured process to foster mutually reinforcing activities.
The shared wisdom and knowledge that grows out of a group’s collective efforts, that is more than an individual can produce and that leads to consensus decisions.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘collective intelligence’.
Groups of people with similar expertise in research integration and/or implementation who can effectively assess each other’s research grant applications and publications. This is analogous to the way traditional disciplines operate.
The quandary that the impacts of an innovation (often but not necessarily technological innovation) cannot be easily predicted until it is extensively developed and widely used; however changing the innovation (to overcome negative impacts) becomes more difficult as it becomes more entrenched.
The adoption and adaptation of research findings or products by businesses, generally in order to make a profit.
These blog posts are about a) a lingua franca or shared language among groups who do not have a common native language or b) developing shared terminology when the same term has different meanings for researchers from different disciplines and/or stakeholders, even though they speak the same language.
Sharing information, by various means, especially to increase understanding between individuals or groups.
A process inviting all members of a community to shape a collective understanding of what matters most to them. This is then used to guide planning for the future of the community.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘community heart and soul model’.
Engaging with community stakeholders when using operational research (advanced analytical methods for problem-solving and decision-making) for community development.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘community operational research’.
Description: Knowledge, skills, abilities and attributes required to undertake some or all of research integration and implementation. Please note that this blog as a whole aims to build expertise in research integration and implementation by sharing methods, concepts, frameworks etc, as well as discussion of competencies.
Example:
- A series of three blog posts by the Translational Ecology Group describe the competencies required to be a translational ecologist divided into 1) knowledge, 2) skills and 3) dispositional attributes.
Can be approached from multiple, sometimes competing, perspectives; are hard to delimit; involve critical unresolved unknowns; and have multiple possible solutions, each of which is only partial and temporary and limited by real-world constraints. Please note that this blog as a whole is about addressing complex problems. Blog posts are only tagged with ‘complex problems’ when they describe complex problems.
Complex systems are composed of many components which may interact with each other in various ways and which are therefore difficult to model. Specific properties include non-linearity, emergence, adaptation and feedback loops.
A hands-on three-dimensional tool that allows teams to share and integrate participant competencies, problem definitions, problem maps and more.
Representing diagrammatically ideas and information (as boxes or circles) and the relationships among them (for example, using terms such as ‘causes,’ ‘created by,’ ‘requires’).
Description: Useful ideas for understanding or undertaking various aspects of research integration and implementation.
Example:
- Britt Holbrook’s blog post Interdisciplinarity and evil: understanding incommensurability describes the idea of incommensurability.
Representing the system of interest in a way that conveys its fundamental details and basic functions for the purposes of understanding and communication.
The tendency to search for, interpret, prefer and recall information in a way that is consistent with or strengthens existing beliefs or hypotheses. This is usually unconscious and is one type of cognitive bias.
Finding a way to deal with serious disagreement or relationship problems. Differs from productive disagreement in that relationships and dialogue have started to break down.
A structured dialogue between experts and citizens to provide recommendations for action on contentious issues. There is general overlap in aims with citizens’ jury although the processes differ.
A process for experts to reach consensus informed by scientific evidence about a controversial issue.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘consensus development panel’.
Brings together existing theories, models and frameworks into a systematic assessment of potential barriers and facilitators in implementing research findings into practice.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘consolidated framework for implementation research’.
Obtaining stakeholder input or feedback on proposed or active research.
The circumstances in which aspects of research integration and implementation occur. These can include historical, political, cultural and other circumstances, as well as the structure and culture of the research and/or stakeholder organisations involved.
A term coined by the US National Science Foundation for research on “complex problems focusing on societal needs. It entails integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation” (https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/convergence/).
Complementary techniques in creative problem solving. The starting point is usually divergent thinking which aims to generate many possible ideas and solutions in a free-flowing manner. Convergent thinking then involves a structured way of organising the ideas and solutions generated to develop an agreed single best solution. Blog posts with this tag may cover only one of these techniques.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘convergent and divergent thinking’.
Stakeholders are involved in joint processes of undertaking research to develop new or revised public policies and services. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-innovation or co-design.
Forming something new and valuable, including ideas, theories, inventions and art. Creativity is the generation of something new and valuable, innovation is its implementation in some sort of change (eg policy, practice, product).
The believability of a person, source or message based on trustworthiness and expertise.
Combining idealised design with critical thinking to enable stakeholders (including marginalised stakeholders) and professionals to work together to rethink a service or system, with the possibility of achieving fundamental change.
A framework developed by Werner Ulrich for systematically determining and/or evaluating where boundaries are set (boundary judgments) in a project or program of research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘critical systems heuristics’.
A systems approach for addressing complex problems that uses existing systems approaches, while also highlighting their limitations. It embraces ‘pluralism’ ie taking a variety of perspectives into account and focuses on improvement of the problem.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘critical systems thinking’.
Working in or with another ethnic culture, or making comparisons with another ethnic culture.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘cross-cultural research’.
A general term that covers any research, education or practice involving two or more disciplines, including multi-, inter-, and trans- disciplinary research, education or practice.
The dominance in research and higher education of a disciplinary model that manipulates academic culture – mechanisms of knowledge production, evaluation criteria etc – so that the world view and practices of discipline-based academics are the accepted research and higher education norm. This is an adaptation to a research and higher education context of Antonio Gramsci’s idea of how a ruling class dominates a society.
Cultural models are taken-for-granted understandings of the world that are shared by groups of people. Like a mental model (on an individual scale) a cultural model is a group’s implicit representations of, and thought processes about, what things are and how things work in the real world.
Behaviours and norms shared by groups of people. When the group is a society, culture includes language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. When the group is an organisation, culture includes shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices.
The process of changing beliefs, behaviours and outcomes, usually in an organisation.
A framework to help decision makers assess the problem situation according to cause-and-effect relationships, so that they can respond appropriately.
Accounting for and reducing biases, particularly in judgments and decision-making.
Undoing colonial influences on research in formerly-colonized countries, including questioning power relationships (especially between indigenous and non-indigenous researchers), relationships with those being researched, and possible distortions in knowledge and methodologies. Valuing indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘decolonisation (of research)’.
The circumstances under which a decision is made and which influence the decision.
Selecting an idea or course of action among several alternate possibilities. The choice may, but does not necessarily, prompt action. Decision making may use rational processes or be governed by heuristics and biases. Decisions can be made by individuals or groups. Analytical techniques such as models may be used to support decision making.
Use of analytical tools, which may be computerized, to assist individuals and groups in decision making. Decision support typically includes various kinds of modelling and mapping. It can also involve dialogue, patterns and other tools.
The Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty provides the following definition “Deep uncertainty exists when parties to a decision do not know, or cannot agree on, the system model that relates action to consequences, the probability distributions to place over the inputs to these models, which consequences to consider and their relative importance. Deep uncertainty often involves decisions that are made over time in dynamic interaction with the system.”
A method for structured communication among experts to pool judgments which often concern estimates or forecasts or contentious issues. The process avoids the kinds of biases that often occur in face-to-face meetings, including groupthink.
A form of reasoning about complex problems which starts with a desired outcome and works creatively to determine what is required and how to proceed for the outcome to be achieved.
Process for creative problem solving and innovation which focuses on understanding the target user and which differs from other creative problem solving processes by developing and testing prototypes of potential solutions.
Conversations to share understandings and, ideally, integrate them into joint meaning. Such conversations are often centred around exploring issues, resolving problems and/or developing consensual proposals for action. The aim is not to convince others, but instead to mutually share openly and honestly. Dialogue can be unstructured, semi-structured or structured. Structured dialogues are helpful when groups get larger.
Diagrammatically representing a live discussion of a problem, focusing on questions, answers, and pro and con arguments, with the aim of obtaining a clearer understanding of the problem (often a complex problem). Dialogue mapping is a specific subset of issue mapping and is often used as a facilitation technique.
Theory to explain how, why and how quickly people try new things.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘diffusion of innovations’.
When interdisciplinary collaboration defaults to the standard frameworks and methods of a single discipline as an unintended consequence of early decisions made about the project, such as where it is housed, what funding is applied for and data collection methods.
Feeling unsettled or having some other affective response to encountering different approaches to knowing the world.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘disconcertment (in research)’.
Losing or changing participants in a research process for a variety of reasons including changing jobs, overload, disconnection or fatigue. May affect researchers and/or stakeholders.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘discontinuity (in research participation)’.
A person’s innate or learned qualities and inclinations, including tendencies to act in specific ways. Dispositions useful for research integration and implementation include humility, curiosity and flexibility.
Generally refers to individual differences among researchers, students and/or stakeholders that affect the way complex problems are understood and acted on. These include differences in mental models, epistemologies, interests and values, as well as other differences such as in problem framing. Can also refer to differences in ways research is conducted and its influences and impacts.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘diversity’.
A series of blog posts providing an introduction to understanding diversity is also available.
DPSIR stands for Driving forces, Pressures, States, Impacts, Responses. The causal framework describes interactions between society and the environment.
In systems thinking, DSRP stands for Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, Perspectives, which can dynamically combine to explain complex systems.
Also known as either/or thinking. A style of thinking that makes meaning in the world by dividing ideas, people, objects, processes and so on into two contrasting fundamental categories, eg good or evil, subject or object, and quantity or quality.
Description: Account of a tool relevant to tackling complex problems that is produced by an i2Insights editor, when no suitable author can be found to turn their description of the tool into an i2Insights contribution.
Example:
- Companion blog posts on systems thinking competencies produced by editor, Gabriele Bammer, based on documentation from the UK Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (no date) https://i2insights.org/2024/03/12/systems-thinking-competencies-part-1/ and
https://i2insights.org/2024/03/12/systems-thinking-competencies-part-2/.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘editor’s additions’.
The process of facilitating learning about aspects of research integration and implementation. Formal, usually university, settings are the focus of many blog posts, while others address capacity building in less formal settings and self-education.
New properties or behaviours displayed by an entity that its parts do not have.
A way of conducting research or some other form of participatory process that gives stakeholders (especially those who are marginalized or otherwise in relatively powerless positions) greater control over the process.
Approaches a problem searching for its causes within the system boundary, often by expanding that boundary. The point is to avoid seeing causes as external to the system (and therefore as unable to be influenced).
Also known as intellectual virtues and vices. Personal characteristics that promote (virtues) or inhibit (vices) intellectual flourishing. Epistemic virtues include humility, creativity, honesty and benevolence. Epistemic vices include arrogance, dogmatism, intellectual dishonesty and closed-mindedness.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘epistemic virtues and vices’.
Silencing, devaluing, marginalizing or destroying less powerful forms of knowledge by more powerful forms. Especially used for indigenous or local knowledge in the context of colonization, but also relevant to less powerful disciplines in the context of interdisciplinary research.
The branch of philosophy that investigates the nature, origin and limits of knowledge. Blog posts tagged with ‘epistemology’ address issues relevant to what and how we know, as well as the way knowledge is created. Some deal with diversity in ways of knowing.
Societal guidelines for conduct that determine what is morally correct or incorrect in any given situation.
Examination of impacts of aspects of research integration and implementation, examining original objectives, what was accomplished and how it was accomplished.
A commitment to basing understanding and actions on research or scholarly findings.
An approach to improving health care and services that engages patients and/or other service users plus relevant staff.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘experience-based co-design’.
Knowledge, skills and experience, generally developed through education and practice, at a level above that of an average person. Henry Collins and Robert Evans (2007 Rethinking expertise. University of Chicago Press, Chicago) identified different kinds of expertise including contributory expertise (which is required to make a substantive contribution to a field) and interactional expertise (the ability to understand disciplines, professional practice and community experience without being trained in those disciplines or professions or having lived in those communities). Contributory expertise can be divided into ‘knowing that’ and ‘knowing how.’
Planning, guiding and managing a group process and environment, by a facilitator. Aims usually include achieving: full participation, mutual understanding, shared purpose and responsibility, and high-quality decisions. There may also be other aims depending on the purpose of the group process. Useful facilitation methods and processes are also included.
Not achieving the research or other objectives, including in integration and implementation. Blog posts usually focus on what can be learnt as a result, usually at a more general level.
A feedback loop is a process in which an output of a system is circled back and used as one or more inputs, through direct or indirect causal links. Feedback loops can be reinforcing (positive) or balancing (negative).
Giving information about reactions to, for example, a product, actions, processes, or performance of a task, to be used as a basis for improvement by the recipient.
Best practices and other issues from Indigenous-led research, including by Aborigines and/or Torres Strait Islanders in Australia, Maori in New Zealand and Indigenous peoples of North and South America, as well as Africa.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘first nations research lessons’.
A systematic process for developing a range of views about how the future could develop. Blog posts may also cover tools for undertaking futures thinking.
Existing and functioning in separate parts, usually referring to the research ‘community’ with expertise in research integration and implementation.
Description: Structured ideas, information or principles that provide a systematic way of undertaking or evaluating various aspects of research integration or implementation.
Example:
- Catherine Hobb’s blog post Adaptive social learning for systemic leadership provides a five-step learning pathway with operational principles, facets of systemic leadership and useful resources.
The expression of shared mental models about a problem or other aspect of reality. It is used by the mass media, politicians, social movements and others to present an issue in a persuasive way that may contribute to some kind of change. Change may require others to reframe how they see the issue. Framing needs to be differentiated from ‘spin’ (using a frame in a manipulative way eg attempting to portray a bad mistake as something innocent) and other ‘propaganda’ (manipulating the public into believe something that is not true).
The provision of money, usually by agencies associated with government, philanthropy, or business, to support research on complex problems that involves integration and implementation.
A process to bring together everyone with a stake in the issue under consideration in order to find common ground and make concrete action plans.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘future search conference’.
An approach to structuring problems, evaluating complex situations and advocating for the rights of people as well as environmental systems and species, that encompasses and goes beyond intersectionality.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘gender-environments-marginalised voices framework’.
A participatory method to maximise cohesion across sub-projects in a large project. Members of sub-projects share what they require from other sub-projects, as well as what they can offer to other sub-projects. Requirements (‘takes’) and offers (‘gives’) can include concepts, data, contributions to problem analysis, infrastructure and network contacts.
Formal or informal administrative arrangements, actions and processes, including laws, rules and norms, involved developing stable practices and organisations, at community, country, corporation and other levels.
A democratic decision-making method that allows everyone to report how strongly they agree or disagree with a proposition. This is coupled with pre-determining the level of agreement that needs to be reached, as well as the process to be followed if this does not occur.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘gradients of agreement tool’.
Developing a collaborative (and often cross-disciplinary) proposal for financial support from a research funding agency.
The transition, in a group process, from divergent to convergent thinking.
A decision (usually poor) that results from a process that prioritises (often unconsciously) agreement over gathering the necessary information for an informed decision, critical reasoning, and/or consideration of alternatives and consequences.
H – M
A strategy for managing risk and uncertainty through diversification, ie taking multiple approaches not just one. It is summed up in the adage “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” The key issue is that if one approach or strategy fails, success in achieving an outcome does not rest on this alone, but may be attained through other strategies and approaches that are also in play.
Research that is highly integrative basic and responsive. It is high-impact research that combines fundamental discoveries with their practical and effective application (https://hibar-research.org/).
Researcher (usually) who provides decision makers, including policy makers, with the full range of research findings and interpretations and does so in an impartial way that does not favour any particular decision or outcome.
An approach to public management (broadly defined) that involves continuously exploring (through learning cycles) the messy reality of how the outcomes that matter to each person might be achieved in their unique life context.
The Public Participation Spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). It defines the public’s role in any community engagement program.
Activities, designed and run by facilitators, to help people get to know each other, especially to assist in formation of new teams.
A step-wise method for bringing qualitative mental models into formal quantitative simulation models. The ICTAM acronym stands for the key methods used: Interviews, Cognitive mapping, Time-sequence Unified Modelling Language (UML), All-encompassing framework, and numerical agent-based Models.
A brainstorming method based on writing rather than discussion to expand on ideas, which can include research questions, concepts and study outlines.
Specific method to help individuals uncover issues that are inhibiting change and identify opportunities for improvement.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘immunity-to-change method’.
The study of how to facilitate uptake, effective application and sustainability of research-based practices and policies. Mainly used in health, education and human services, but use of the term is spreading beyond these fields.
Ideas, theories, methods, standards, values and more, often from different disciplines, that have no common basis and are therefore unable to be integrated (for example in interdisciplinary research).
Small modifications or adjustments without changing the essence of the policy, practice, structure etc. Often occur in response to a particular problem with a policy, practice, structure etc.
A way of managing unknown unknowns to support decision making, developed by Yakov Ben-Haim, that involves non-probabilistic quantification of uncertainty, developing a system model, and establishing a set of performance requirements.
Implementing something new, including a new idea, method, technology or product. Blog posts tagged with innovation usually deal with it in relation to change and/or unknowns. Creativity is the process that underpins innovation.
An action research concept that describes ways in which researchers can view themselves in relation to those they are researching.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘insider-outsider continuum’.
Embedding research integration and implementation into the academic mainstream, eg by establishing departments of research integration and implementation, centres of interdisciplinarity, relevant journals and professional associations, funding streams, promotion criteria etc.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘institutionalisation’.
Engaging a range of disciplines and stakeholders, combining their knowledge about a problem (often through integrated modelling) and making it available for decision making (often for policy making), as well as for societal learning.
Building frameworks with features of society, including economy, and biosphere. Also known as integrated assessment modelling.
Has three dimensions: 1) bringing together people, ideas, values etc that were previously separate, 2) creating a coherent and comprehensive whole from these previously separate parts and 3) staying alert to unknowns and outliers that cannot be synthesised into the new coherent whole.
A scholarly and political endeavour, which can also be thought of as a new discipline. As a scholarly endeavour i2S aims to provide a resources repository that draws on, and contributes to, research tackling complex societal and environmental problems. Such research may be conducted by researchers who have organised into specific approaches (eg transdisciplinarity, action research, systems thinking, implementation science, design thinking), as well as those who do not identify with these groups. This i2Insights blog and the resources repository on the i2S website are key in this activity. As a political endeavour, i2S aims to support recognition of common cause and collective action across researchers tackling complex societal and environmental problems to help institutionalise the competencies, concepts, frameworks, methods, processes and theories employed in such research. Please note that this blog as a whole aims to build resources for integration and implementation sciences (i2S).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘integration and implementation sciences (i2S)’.
Experts in integration and implementation sciences (i2S), particularly in theory, concepts, methods and processes for tackling complex societal and environmental problems. This disciplinary expertise includes all the areas covered in this blog.
Also known as integration and implementation scientists.
Provides five options for stakeholder engagement in research, along with associated promises that researchers are expected to make to stakeholders. Adapted for Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) from the public participation spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). An earlier version was called the research-modified IAP2 spectrum.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘i2S stakeholder engagement options framework’.
A framework to combine scientific ecological research with fostering change, specifically involving reflection and being explicit about boundaries, using multiple approaches, value-based advocacy and action for improvement and applying care to the human and non-human world.
Interdisciplinarity is a mode of research and problem solving by teams or individuals that integrates information, methods, tools, concepts, perspectives and/or theories from two or more disciplines. Adding (general relevance) means these blog posts address topics that are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation, not just to interdisciplinarity.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘interdisciplnarity (general relevance)’.
Interdisciplinarity is a mode of research and problem solving by teams or individuals that integrates information, methods, tools, concepts, perspectives and/or theories from two or more disciplines. Adding (specific) means these blog posts address topics that are relevant only to interdisciplinarity and not to research integration and implementation more broadly.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘interdisciplinarity (specific)’.
Professional staff who undertake research and administrative tasks in interdisciplinary teams using expertise in boundary spanning and research implementation. This role sits between i2S specialists ie specialists in integration and implementation sciences (i2S; an academic role) and research development professionals (an administrative role).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘interdisciplinary executive scientists’.
Can be things that a person is curious about and/or has a stake in, where they stand to gain or lose depending on what happens to that something. Interests are generally aligned with motivations.
Ways in which different aspects of a person’s identity, including gender, race, class and caste, provide multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Both discrimination and marginalisation, and empowerment and privilege can result.
A non-linear approach to investigate and intervene in complex problems, with four phases: diagnosis, dialogue, decision, change. Abbreviated to IDP-3DC.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘intervention design process’.
Examines inputs (I), process (P) and output (O) to provide a more detailed understanding of integration in any particular project.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘IPO model of integration’.
Representing a problem diagrammatically, focusing on questions, answers, and pro and con arguments, with the aim of obtaining a clearer understanding of the problem (often a complex problem). Dialogue mapping is a specific subset of issue mapping.
An opinion, estimation or evaluation based on review of available evidence, perceptiveness and careful thought.
Academic or scholarly periodicals where concepts, methods, frameworks, processes etc for research integration and implementation are published, often along with cases illustrating their use.
K* covers knowledge brokering, knowledge exchange, knowledge management, knowledge mobilisation, knowledge transfer and knowledge translation, which are all indexed as research implementation.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘research implementation’.
Those embedded in research teams or institutions who facilitate relationship development and exchange of information between researchers and users of knowledge, including policy makers and practitioners, in order to enhance research implementation.
A field or framework that examines how diverse knowledges can interact in a non-hierarchical ways to create shared meaning.
Formal and informal rules that shape knowledge production, research agenda setting, research financing, sharing and protecting knowledge, implementation of knowledge and other knowledge-based activities. Rules range from social expectations to intellectual property law.
Pulling together what is known about a problem from either or both of academic research and practical experience. Is one aspect of integration.
The people, practices and institutions (including universities) involved in producing, transferring and using knowledge.
Being in charge of, guiding, encouraging, organising and/or directing other individuals, teams or organisations, especially in achieving research integration and implementation. Blog posts cover leadership competencies, leadership impacts and strengthening leadership.
Learning and achieving change based on experience by following a set of phases (eg plan, do monitor, learn, adjust) and then moving from the last phase back into the first, making modifications based on experience.
What is accepted as proper (for researchers and stakeholders) in conducting or contributing to research on complex problems, including knowledge, concerns, processes and authorisation. For stakeholders, legitimacy also includes whether representatives of stakeholder groups are nominated in an acceptable way.
Places in systems where a small shift in one element can change the behaviour of the whole system or significant parts of the system.
Principles and practices for participation and decision making in groups that seek to move from controlling and constraining participants to including them in creative, respectful and productive ways. See https://www.liberatingstructures.com
A method for involving everyone on a group in rapidly generating questions, ideas and/or suggestions. One of the Liberating Structures methods: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/1-1-2-4-all/
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘Liberating structures 1-2-4-all method’.
A way to include everyone involved in a research program or other activity in sifting, prioritising and planning actions by reviewing all 4 phases of development: birth, renewal, creative destruction and maturity. One of the Liberating Structures methods: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/31-ecocycle-planning/
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘Liberating structures Ecocycle planning’.
A method for identifying counterproductive activities and behaviours that should be stopped; this can then make space for innovation. One of the Liberating Structures methods: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/. (The name TRIZ is taken from teoriya resheniya izobretatelskikh zadatch, which is a Russian theory of inventive problem solving, and the method is based on one element of this theory.)
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘Liberating structures TRIZ method’.
Descriptions, often graphic depictions, of a chain of causes and effects leading to a particular outcome. They often include inputs, activities or processes, outputs, outcomes and impacts. They can be used for planning impacts, as well as evaluating them.
Pathways to impact (or impact pathways) are logic models focused specifically on how research can achieve economic, environmental and/or social change.
Developing a drawing, diagram or other visualisation to show relationships, for example among knowledge, ideas, questions, arguments, people or events.
Motivation Assessment for Team Readiness Integration and Collaboration (MATRICx) is an assessment tool (available as a phone app) to measure motivations to collaborate.
Explicit expectations and ground rules for meetings, aiming to make them run better. Meetings involve two or more people, occur in many environments and serve multiple purposes, often involving sharing information and/or joint decision making. Conferences are included.
Existing in people’s minds are their private images (or other representations) of, and thought process about, what things are and how things work in the real world. These subjective, incomplete and sometimes flawed simplifications of reality play a major role in how people think, reason and make decisions.
Thinking about thinking, including knowledge about thinking (such as awareness of what one knows and doesn’t know) and the ability to understand, control and manipulate thinking, with the aim of improving thinking, learning and performance.
Words or phrases that describe objects, activities or ideas in a way that is not true, literally, but that help describe or explain them. Conceptual metaphors refer to the understanding of one idea in terms of another.
Description: Established ways of tackling specific aspects of research integration or implementation.
Example:
- Joseph Guillaume’s blog post Blackboxing unknown unknowns through vulnerability analysis describes the method of vulnerability analysis (and an application of the method for dealing with unknown unknowns).
Visually organising information, showing ideas in relation to other ideas, with little attention to the nature of the relationships. Often created around a single concept.
Influencing a change or proposed change to eliminate, avoid or reduce negative consequences.
Combining quantitative and qualitative data, methods and/or paradigms in a single study or series of studies on the same problem.
Building useful representations of reality, particularly of key features and relationships (and even though models may be complex they are simpler than reality). Models can be informal (mental models) or formal (computational models). Key roles of modelling are to provide a) representations and understanding of systems, including complex systems, b) tools for understanding and managing unknowns, c) tools for decision support, d) participatory processes that expose diversity (eg differences in mental models) and e) tools for integration (eg of different knowledge and perspectives).
A qualitative story-telling method for evaluation, focused on compiled learning about what the participants value about an intervention and the change associated with it.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘most significant change technique’.
A model of research and problem solving where experts from different disciplines and areas of practice contribute as they see it and where anyone who has access to their products can integrate them for their own purposes. In contrast, inter- and trans- disciplinarity involve joint problem definition and integration by some or all of the team and this constrains the inputs and how they are used. Multidisciplinarity can also be used in a non-specific ways, but that is not the case in i2Insights blog.
The use of more than one language by an individual speaker, group of speakers or organisation in meetings, documents or other communication formats.
Bringing together and attempting to integrate ‘many voices’ ie many ways of understanding, explaining and working on a problem or issue.
N – S
A form of dialogue that aims to resolve disagreements, including by compromise and/or seeking mutual benefit.
Developing and using a web of professional contacts who can, when needed or requested, provide various forms of support including information, resources, insights, feedback, advice, contacts for others, and assistance with dissemination of research findings. Some network connections may develop into relationships.
A group discussion process focused on turn-taking in presentation of ideas or suggestions and voting on the collated ideas to determine priorities and reach decisions.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘nominal group technique’.
An alternative term for ‘stakeholders’ that emphasises the expertise brought to projects. Such expertise includes Indigenous, traditional, local, lived-experience and similar knowledges.
Avoiding the selection of an idea or course of action among several alternate possibilities.
Relationships where changes in inputs do not lead to proportional changes in outcomes. Outcomes may be chaotic, unpredictable, or counterintuitive.
Acronym for Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment and Pedigree. Together these allow different sorts of uncertainty to be presented in a standardised way.
The branch of philosophy that investigates ‘being’. Blog posts tagged with ‘ontology’ address issues relevant to the nature of reality and what really exists, including diverse theories and views about these.
A movement to make research processes, data and findings transparent and accessible to all. It includes access to research papers that is open, rather than behind a paywall; open reviewing where the reviewers’ names and comments are made public; and making research processes public eg making researcher notebooks and raw data available online.
A method for running a meeting or conference that allows for a high degree of self-organisation by participants.
Framework for designing a pathway to impact in practice, by considering, among other things, how to: improve the situation, generate knowledge, and support mutual learning. Practices it has been applied to include transdisciplinary research and student-staff partnerships.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘outcome spaces framework’.
A knowledge integration framework exploring where different knowledge systems can and cannot find common ground epistemologically, ethically and ontologically.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘partial overlaps framework’.
Engaging the knowledge of stakeholders, including tacit knowledge, in building models.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘participatory modelling’.
The joint production of videos in group settings for research, as well as community development and advocacy. It has multiple uses in research, including to empower marginalized groups.
How a decision is limited by past decisions, rather than simply by current conditions.
Patterns are regularities, where the elements repeat in predictable ways. Examples are standard ways of approaching a problem, standard sub-processes in modelling, standard layouts for organising research publications (eg introduction, methods, results, discussion). Patterns can be explicit or tacit.
Persistence or continued effort in doing something in order to achieve success, often despite difficulties, delay, failure and opposition.
Relatively stable and characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that make individuals unique, as well as different from each other.
The natural and/or human-made surroundings in which research and education occur, including landscapes, structures such open offices, spaces that facilitate interaction, proximity to other buildings, lighting, and air circulation.
Includes, but goes beyond, physical environment to include history, material culture and the flow of people, goods and ideas, as well the relationships among these elements.
Experts and intermediaries within the policy making process who do not make decisions themselves, instead providing analysis, ideas, contacts and other information to decision makers.
Individuals who recognise windows of opportunity for policy action on pressing problems and who invest their own resources, especially time, energy and reputation, to develop timely policy alternatives supported by advocacy coalitions.
Setting the course of action to be pursued, especially by government, business or nongovernmental organisations. For governments, policy making includes making or changing laws and regulations, and setting budget priorities. Most blog posts are concerned with how research can influence the policymaking process; some are concerned with better understanding this process.
Please note that many posts in this blog provide ways of improving understanding and action on complex problems that could in turn improve policy making. Blog posts are only tagged with ‘policymaking’ when they are directly concerned with this topic.
Ways in which researchers view themselves in relation to those they are researching. Can also have broader meanings, including the social and political context that creates a person’s identity, as well as understanding of how identity influences outlook on the world.
A form of enquiry into problems that comes into play when either or both systems uncertainties or decision stakes are high. It encompasses the management of irreducible uncertainties in knowledge and in ethics, and the recognition of different legitimate perspectives and ways of knowing. Problems are set, and the solutions evaluated, by the criteria of the broader communities that are affected. Taken from https://i2insights.org/2021/10/19/guide-to-post-normal-science/.
Possession of control, authority or influence over others and how it impacts the conduct and communication of research, as well as research implementation and change.
A framework for analysing forms, spaces and levels of power and their interrelationships.
Differential ability to exert control, authority or influence over others, especially in deciding what research will be conducted and how.
Derived from Aristotle’s phrónēsis, this is the will and the skill to balance complex and contentious aims and principles to achieve good outcomes.
Recognition of the limits of knowledge when societal and environmental problems are complex and integration of a scientific approach with democratic deliberation and learning processes.
A philosophical tradition that focuses on practical approaches and solutions, evaluating their success in terms of that practical application.
A rigorous, often quantitative, assessment or statement, about what would be observed in future under specific conditions.
Description: Introductory materials on a particular subject aimed at providing beginners with a solid foundation to build on; also known as a ‘101’.
Example:
- In this blog the first primer is a series of blog posts on stakeholder engagement, one of the main topics covered by the blog.
Also known as negotiation on the merits or ‘getting to yes.’ The method uses a problem solving approach to find a mutually agreeable fair solution that best accommodates various interests.
Problems are defined differently by different disciplinary experts and stakeholders. Addressing any problem requires taking these different understandings of the problem into account in developing an agreed (or at least acceptable) statement of the problem, which will then determine how it is tackled. Coming to a shared problem framing will not always be possible, especially for complex problems.
Description: Series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve particular ends. Processes are less well established than methods.
Example:
- Anthony Boxshall’s blog post Research impact in government – three crucial elements you will need for success describes three processes to follow to improve research uptake in government policy.
Turning discomfort, tension, arguments or conflict into dialogue that broadens perspectives and aids learning and creativity.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘productive disagreement’.
An approach to involving local communities (usually) in co-building, using and sharing geo-spatial information and maps in order to include their knowledge, experiences and aspirations, as well as to broaden public involvement in policymaking.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘public participation geographical information systems (GIS)’.
A method for investigating clusters of viewpoints in a given population based on inverted factor analysis
Review of an organisation’s preparedness for something new, which could, for example, be a new project, some kind of change, or an evaluation.
Experimental research in a specific geographical area such as a city or city district, that involves people living and/or working in that area along with relevant decision-makers. Such research aims to make change happen and is often used in sustainability research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘real-world laboratories’.
In research this involves ensuring that those who contribute to the research also experience direct benefit from the research. For researchers, it means that rewards (eg being an author on a publication) are commensurate with the contributions made. For non-researchers participating in various ways, for example as research subjects or stakeholders, it means they also receive something in return for their contributions (eg money, co-authorship, access to information, feedback about the impact of their contributions).
The process of reflecting on how the research or specific aspects of the research (eg dialogue process, data collection, interpretation) are conducted, especially the influence of the researchers themselves (such as their knowledge, biases, perceptions, motivations etc). Also applies to students and their education.
Close long-term professional connections among people and/or groups that involve building trust and respect and free exchange of ideas. They are a prelude to and underpin effectively working together.
Professional staff who work with research teams, providing skills that assist with team building and the development successful interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary funding proposals.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘research development professionals’.
Different layers and interconnections which affect research conduct, including one or more of individuals, teams, organisations, funding and the communities in which research may be embedded. Ecosystems operate within and across institutions.
Change that can be attributed to research. This includes making a difference in policy or practice, or in skills, attitudes, relationships or thinking. Research implementation is the process, research impact is the outcome, although impact may not be able to be unequivocally linked to specific implementation activities.
A general term for various ways of using research to support policy and/or practice change in government, business and/or civil society. Research implementation includes: knowledge brokering, knowledge exchange, knowledge management, knowledge mobilisation, knowledge transfer and knowledge translation, known collectively as K*. Research implementation is a process, change (research impact) is the desired outcome, although it may not be achieved.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘research implementation’.
A modified version of the Public Participation Spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), which lays out different roles for stakeholders in research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘research-modified IAP2 spectrum’.
October 2021: The research-modified IAP2 spectrum has been replaced by the i2S Stakeholder Engagement Options Framework.
Generally, resilience is the ability to bounce-back after adversity. For social-ecological systems it is the capacity to absorb or withstand perturbations and other stressors while maintaining their essential structure and functions. Resilience describes the degree to which a system is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation.
Detailed (rich) drawings of complex or ill-defined problems that aim to capture multiple facets and understandings (objective and subjective) of the problems in ways that do not privilege particular points of view. The aim is to reflect a problem in all its complexity to aid in understanding the problem. Developed as part of soft systems methodology, but also more widely used.
The possibility that an action or change will have negative effects. Risk involves uncertainty and is a known unknown.
Framework covering costs, benefits, risks and mitigation of potential risks for everyone (including stakeholders) involved in a research process in order to make transparent how costs, benefits, risks and mitigation are distributed and to provide a mechanism for reviewing the equity of that distribution.
Ceremonies, actions or group behaviours used in a customary way to align a research process with a set of values. An example is passing around a decorative object during a dialogue process to signify a person’s turn to speak, in order to enact the value of ensuring that everyone has an opportunity to be heard.
Accepted principles or instructions about way things are or should be done, including norms, practices, taboos, regulations, legislation, treaties and ordinances.
All the potential starting positions (also known as prior states), available alternatives and possible outcomes that can affect judgments, predictions and decisions.
Using temporary structures, techniques, ideas, spaces etc to help those new to aspects of research integration and implementation understand and use concepts, methods and processes that are hard to grasp. Scaffolding is often provided by an educator or facilitator.
The unit of analysis, usually geographical region for spatial scale, time period for temporal scale and institutional level for organisational scale.
Moving from a single successful project or pilot study to a community- or population- wide implementation, usually of an innovative evidence-based practice.
Portrayals of possible futures to guide decision-making in the present.
An empirically-based theory that identifies ten broad universal personal values, differentiated by their underlying goal. Also explores dynamic relations among the values and value conflict.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘Schwartz theory of basic values’.
A field focused on understanding, managing and evaluating circumstances that affect the effectiveness of teamwork and collaboration (team science and team scholarship are included under teamwork).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘science of team science’.
A comprehensive review of what is known and not known about a particular complex problem. The aim is generally to provide an objective and transparent overview that is useful to decision makers. It can use a range of techniques.
The process of identifying all aspects of a problem that are important, including discipline experts and stakeholders who should be involved in developing understanding and action. This is followed a process of boundary setting, ie setting priorities for the approach that will be taken.
An on-going process of refinement of plausible understandings and effective actions in situations of high complexity and uncertainty.
The development of insights or research ideas by chance in a beneficial way.
Generally refer to simulations of real social or environmental problems as – usually – board games or video games to be played by groups of stakeholders, researchers and/or students. After the game is played there is generally a discussion among players and the researchers who developed the game about insights gained into the problem and ways of dealing with it. Outcomes include: increased awareness of issues, deeper understanding and opportunities to exchange knowledge, opportunities to test options for decisions or action, and training for crisis situations.
Can also refer to other forms of serious play (generally by adults) eg describing a problem or concept using Lego.
Also situation analysis. Process of critically evaluating the internal and external conditions that affect a project or an organisation, usually undertaken prior to a change or as part of an evaluation.
Resisting the pressures of modern academia to make time for, for example: long-term, high-quality stakeholder engagement; exploring ideas with colleagues; maintaining diverse networks; and deep reflection.
The process of gaining insight through iterative reflection that occurs when two or more people share ideas, experiences and other forms of knowledge and perception. May also be referred to as mutual learning.
A way of studying and visualising relationships, interactions and communications between people, organisations and other entities.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘social network analysis’.
A seven-step method for systematically tackling ill-structured problems ie there is no clear view on what the problem is or what actions should be taken.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘soft systems methodology’.
Various ways of including stakeholders in research in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the problem, provide ideas about addressing it and/or help the research to support policy or practice change. Stakeholders are those affected by the problem under investigation and those in a position to do something about the problem. Stakeholders include “non-certified experts,” such as those with Indigenous or local knowledge.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘stakeholder engagement’.
A series of blog posts providing an introduction to stakeholder engagement is also available.
Description: Reviews of progress on the i2Insights blog (generally annual). Occasionally some other blog-related topic.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘state-of-the-blog’.
A social and cultural activity for integrating, sharing and interpreting knowledge and experiences, and for education. Includes formal methods such as storytelling ethnography.
Interactive tool to allow a range of stakeholders involved in a planning situation incrementally deal with uncertainty and make decisions.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘strategic choice approach’.
A process associated with Liberating Structures (https://www.liberatingstructures.com/) that approaches the development of research and other strategy by drawing on everyone involved in continuously exploring 6 core questions. Knotworking more generally refers to collaborative work that has no centre of control and where separate threads of activity are constantly tied, untied and retied.
Seeking to bring about improvement by amplifying the inherent strengths of individuals, families, groups and/or organisations. In contrast to deficit approaches which concentrate on problems and weaknesses.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘strengths-based approaches’.
Failure to meet human needs, causing avoidable physical and mental harm in sectors of society, and resulting from longstanding ubiquitous social systems and structures that normalise disparities in power and access to resources.
Result from unexpected events and are particularly relevant to uncovering unknown unknowns. Are brief mental and physiological states than can be neutral, positive or negative.
A set of normative criteria for the analysis and development of participation and integration in planning methodologies and processes for the management of strategic natural resources and disaster risk.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘sustainable procedure framework’.
Description: Review of common themes among two or more blog posts.
Access all blog posts categorised under ‘synthesis blog posts’.
Foster, but do no conduct, collaborative research on complex problems by bringing together interdisciplinary groups for extended periods in collegial settings. Often provide expertise in information technology aimed at assisting groups to use existing datasets, as well as providing expert facilitation.
Focuses on circular, interlocking and sometimes time delayed relationships, with feedback as the central concept. Involves defining problems dynamically and includes mapping (causal loop diagrams) and modelling stages. Blog posts may deal with only one method from a system dynamics approach, such as causal loop diagrams or change over time graphs.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘system dynamics approach’.
In a research context, involving stakeholders as full partners in ways that 1) ensure engagement of all relevant stakeholders including those who are marginalised and powerless, 2) facilitate synergy rather than conflict and 3) use modelling and other methods to enhance awareness of the relevant systems.
Systems can be natural or made by humans and occur in all aspects of life, including the environment, culture, society, biology, technology and behaviour. Systems can be open to their environment or closed, and can vary in level of complexity. Systems are comprised of dynamically interacting elements, with the whole being “more than the sum of its parts.” The interrelationships also mean that a change to any part of a system may have greater or lesser effects on other parts (“everything is connected to everything else”). Systems tend to be resistant to change and maintain their identity under a range of conditions.
Blog posts categorised under systems may be about particular systems, covering some or all of these issues, or they may be about approaches to understanding or working with systems such as modelling or scoping.
Dynamic phenomena or patterns of behaviour that recur in different contexts and that provide insights into what drives systems. They are useful for understanding similarities among problems and provide shortcuts to identifying effective interventions.
Leadership that can see the larger system and engage with relevant people and organisations in order to co-create transformative change.
Examination of interrelationships and interconnections, and the resulting challenges of setting boundaries (around the problem, stakeholders involved etc), managing multiple perspectives and seeing problems as a whole.
T – Z
Tacit knowledge or unknown knowns is knowledge that individuals, groups and organisations are largely unaware that they have.
A multiphase set of interventions for forming a new team or developing an existing team, which uses a shared mutual learning mindset as the guiding element.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘team effectiveness model for science’.
All aspects of individuals, groups or teams working together, especially to undertake research, including processes, requirements and lessons from experience. Teamwork can involve only researchers or can also include students and/or stakeholders. Teamwork also includes team science and team scholarship.
These blog posts explain particular terms in research integration and implementation and/or discuss the meaning of particular terms.
A method developed by Lewis Deep Democracy (https://www.lewisdeepdemocracy.com/) to improve decision making by surfacing hidden disagreements and then harnessing the insights gained.
Description: Generalised explanations of how aspects of research integration and implementation work. They guide the development of further understanding. Theories are more firmly grounded (than frameworks are) in philosophy, other humanities, social sciences or sciences.
Example:
- Deana Pennington’s blog post Knowledge synthesis and external representations builds on three theories addressing the role of externalizations in enabling people to grapple with understanding complex concepts that may not be familiar to them.
A process to plan change or evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken and a product that links long-term goals with a step-by-step pathway.
A change management method to improve unproductive patterns of behaviour.
Helps researchers specifically consider three aspects of any problem, when both understanding and change are sought. These are a) what is known or needs to be better understood about the problem as it currently stands (systems knowledge), b) what is the desired future (target knowledge), and c) how can we get from the current to the desired situation (transformation knowledge).
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘three types of knowledge tool’.
Requiring additional time or sequestered time (compared with traditional research) in order to successfully complete various elements of research integration and implementation, such as stakeholder participation or intensive interaction among researchers.
Thresholds that, when exceeded, lead to large irreversible changes in systems.
Uses a questionnaire and workshop to trigger dialogue among collaborators from different disciplines and professions in order to uncover different and similar assumptions about research. The questionnaire is philosophically grounded, covering metaphysical and epistemic aspects of research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘toolbox dialogue method’.
Description: Collections of resources for undertaking various aspects of research integration and implementation. They are often, but not always, collections of methods and processes.
Example:
- Matthias Bergmann’s blog post Methods for integration in transdisciplinary research describes 43 methods in seven classes that are useful for research integration.
Professional roles supporting transformational sustainability research and education projects, especially by organising and facilitating collaborative processes in such projects.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transacademic interface managers’.
The term transdisciplinarity is used in multiple ways; in these blog posts it is mostly used for building new integrative frameworks and research strategies that transcend disciplinary boundaries and/or involving stakeholders in research and research implementation. Adding (general relevance) means these blog posts address topics that are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation, not just to transdisciplinarity.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transdisciplinarity (general relevance)’.
The term ‘transdisciplinarity’ is used in multiple ways; in these blog posts it is mostly used for building new integrative frameworks and research strategies that transcend disciplinary boundaries and/or involving stakeholders in research and research implementation. Adding (specific) means these blog posts address topics that are relevant only to transdisciplinarity and not to research integration and implementation more broadly.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transdisciplinarity (specific)’.
Guiding principles and criteria for planning and evaluating transdisciplinary research.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transdisciplinary research quality assurance framework’.
Irreversible change to a radically different future state requiring new mindsets, behaviours and ways of being.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transformational change’.
Also transformation systems. Multiple people and groups working systemically to shift status quo systems towards being more equitable, regenerative and sustainable in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and staying within planetary boundaries.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘transformations systems’.
Translational ecology is a boundary-spanning environmental science that leads to actionable research focused on maintaining or enhancing the resilience of social-environmental systems. Most considerations are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation.
To have confidence in attributes such as the integrity, ability and reliability of someone (eg other researchers) or something (eg a model).
Researchers with two sets of skills, namely depth in a discipline or field (the vertical bar of the T) and expertise in collaborating across disciplines (the horizontal bar of the T).
Adapted from Māori culture to acknowledge that different people are the experts in different contexts. Tuākana is the senior or leader role and tēina is the junior or novice role. Can be usefully applied in cross-cultural research, where those from one culture will be senior in some aspects of the research and junior in other aspects.
A state of limited knowledge. Uncertainty is a subset of ‘unknowns’ and generally a known unknown (ie an unknown one is aware of). In the blog posts, however, ‘uncertainty’ is often used interchangeably with ‘unknowns’. Some blog posts are about dealing with uncertainty.
Failure to recognise and implement a research tool (which includes theories, concepts, methods and capabilities) that would criticise and challenge “past and present untruths, injustices and unethicalities.” (Quotation taken from https://i2insights.org/2021/04/06/research-perpetuating-injustices/.)
Aspects of complex problems about which knowledge is missing or incomplete. Unknowns include: known unknowns, unknown knowns (tacit knowledge), unknown unknowns (deep uncertainty), uncertainty, risk and ignorance.
What we do not know we do not know. Can occur at individual though to societal levels. Result either from false convictions or unknowns that one is not aware of (see Smithson blog post). Discovering an unknown unknown generally involves surprise. May be used to mean deep uncertainty.
Evaluation planned and conducted with the primary intended users so that the findings are more likely to be taken up in decision making and performance improvement.
Access all blog posts tagged with ‘utilisation focused evaluation’.
Individual principles and ideals that guide a person’s attitudes, behaviours and actions. These principles and ideals are ranked relative to one another, so that each person’s values form an ordered system of priorities that characterise the person. Values can also operate at an organisational or community level.
A theory for examining organizational systems and subsystems and how they can adapt to a changing environment.
Imagining a desirable outcome, for example, what a research project could produce or a societal change that could be achieved.
Any technique for communicating ideas (abstract or concrete), information, situations etc through creation of some kind of image, diagram, map, animation or game.
A way of examining change, decision making or co-creation by exploring interactions among values, rules and knowledge.
Also called vulnerability assessment. Process of reviewing issues that can impair the functioning of a system. Often used to assess threats to the security of infrastructure.
Favourable opportunity when taking immediate action is likely to achieve a desired outcome. If the opportunity is missed, the possibility of action is lost. In a government policy context, political scientist John Kingdon argued that alignment between the problem, the policy and the politics created a “policy window” for change.
A philosophy of balance, where two opposites are required and co-exist in harmony.