Latest contribution
Three dimensions of context
By Gabriele Bammer.
In research tackling complex societal and environmental problems, what is involved in taking context into account when aiming for more comprehensive understanding of a problem, as well as research support for policy and practice change so that the problem is better dealt with?
As outlined in my work developing Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S), considering context involves dealing with circumstances at three levels:
- social or big picture, eg., the historical, political, economic, cultural, geographical and other circumstances
- organizational, especially the structure and culture of the research and stakeholder organisations involved
- individual, especially the positionality or identity of researchers and stakeholders.
Recent contributions
Four lessons for pursuing participatory action-oriented PhD research inside the university system
By Raymond Hyma and Javier García Martínez.
2. Javier García Martínez (biography)
What happens when participatory, relational, and action-oriented inquiry meets the institutional architecture of the PhD: tight timelines, individual authorship, and demands for methodological certainty? What does it mean to pursue participatory and action oriented research as a PhD project inside the university system?
We are PhD candidates in a university alliance connecting Australia and the UK, navigating participatory and action-oriented commitments across two institutional contexts. We noticed that much of the literature about participatory doctorates is written retrospectively, once the thesis is submitted and the mess has been tidied into a coherent story. Our contribution is different: we write from the middle, while decisions are still being negotiated, while constraints are still shaping the work, while we are still learning how to stay accountable to participatory values in real time.
So, what are we learning so far?
Navigating polarities: Fostering both/and mindsets in team science
By Gemma Jiang and Joanna Kaniewska.
2. Joanna Kaniewska (biography)
How can teams develop a mindset that makes differences productive, such as disciplinary differences in work processes, communication styles, underlying assumptions, behavioral norms, and more? In particular, how can teams move from an either/or mindset, which often leads to defensiveness driven by the need to prove that “I am right; you are wrong” to a both/and mindset, which fosters a learning culture in which differences become sources of generative tension that can propel creativity and collective insight?
One practical way to cultivate a both/and mindset is through working with polarities which are opposing yet interdependent tendencies. By integrating both tendencies, teams can move beyond either/or thinking and draw on a wider range of perspectives. We argue that developing the capacity to navigate polarities helps teams navigate differences more effectively overall.
In this i2Insights contribution, we describe three limiting beliefs drawn from our experience with team science coaching and show how they can be transformed through polarity thinking.
Building trust in researching about and engaging with underserved communities
By Katrina Messiha.
How can we ensure that the many people whose lives are shaped by homelessness, migration, poverty, trauma, mental illness, caring responsibilities, social isolation and other contributors to marginalisation are adequately represented and well engaged with in relevant research?
This is important because if some lives are missing from the evidence base, they may also be missing from the services, policies and practices built upon it. But what happens when researchers try to engage people whose previous encounters with healthcare, welfare, housing, immigration or other public systems, including research, may have been difficult, exhausting or even harmful?
The usual language used to describe such people is “hard to reach,” “seldom heard” or “difficult to engage.” These phrases may be commonly used and well intended, but they can hide a pressing question: Where does trust already exist and how can research begin there?
Cultivating epistemic humility in research teams
By Faye Miller.
What makes it so challenging for research teams to be truly receptive to being wrong? And what can teams do to make doubt expressible and useful?
Being aware that knowledge is always situational, incomplete, and prone to error, as well as the willingness to hold opinions tentatively, be receptive to change, and recognise the boundaries of understanding, are all components of epistemic humility. Humility about what one knows and can know is an intellectual quality in individual researchers. Yet epistemic humility also has a structural dimension: which doubts get expressed, whose knowledge is heard, and how teams handle what they don’t yet know, are challenges that go beyond the individual researcher to shape how research teams function.
This i2Insights contribution is an attempt to highlight two challenges that need to be addressed:
- the confidence trap, built on the pressure to exude certainty, and
- the silence trap, arising from the social dynamics that can suppress productive doubt.
Highlighted contributions
Integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research: how can the leadership challenges be addressed?
By Lisa Deutsch and Sabine Hoffmann
2. Sabine Hoffmann (biography)
How can the integration required in large inter- and transdisciplinary programs be effectively led? What challenges do leaders of integration in such programs face and how can they address them? What are the particular challenges in using a theory of change as an integrative tool?
We describe five key challenges that we encountered when leading the integration for a large 10-year inter- and transdisciplinary research program, which explored novel non-grid water and sanitation systems that can function as comparable alternatives to conventional large network-based systems. We experienced these challenges when applying the tool Theory of Change to facilitate communication, collaboration and integration among the team members (for more on theory of change see the i2Insights contribution by Heléne Clark).
Interdisciplinary teamwork: Expert and non-expert at the same time
By Annemarie Horn and Eduardo Urias
2. Eduardo Urias (biography)
How do teams engage in interdisciplinary knowledge integration and how can they be supported in doing so? Why does simple sharing and questioning of knowledge not necessarily lead to interdisciplinary knowledge integration? And what does it mean to act as both an expert and a non-expert in interdisciplinary teamwork, and why is it hard?
In a five month course, we supervised a team of eight master students in the integration of insights and concepts from their individual, discipline-based projects into a joint work about circular economy. Based on our earlier research, described in our i2Insights contribution on four typical behaviours in interdisciplinary knowledge integration, we expected that if we helped the students to share their own knowledge and to engage with each other’s knowledge, that integration would emerge.
Six lessons for newly-forming large research consortia
By Daniel Black and Geoff Bates
2. Geoff Bates (biography)
What are some key tips for establishing new, large consortia to tackle complex global challenges? What are the best ways to coordinate large groups of researchers, practitioners and publics towards a shared goal?
Describing this type of research is cumbersome. As a shorthand we have started to use the terms ‘LMITs’ (pronounced ‘limits’) and ‘New LMITs’ to denote similarly characterised projects and teams that are: ‘Newly forming’, ‘Large-scale’, ‘Mission-orientated’, and ‘Inter- and Trans-disciplinary’.
Drawing on our own experience over the past three years of establishing a New LMIT, we suggest six primary inter-related recommendations for other New LMITs, and for those who fund or support such research groups:
1. Factor in (far) more time than you might expect
2. Seek out funders who understand
A framework for building transdisciplinary expertise
By ANU Transdisciplinarity Working Group
What expertise should everyone have in order to effectively play their role in tackling complex societal and environmental problems? Is there a framework that can help everyone develop rudimentary skills and provide a pathway to enhancing them as and when necessary?
We were charged with addressing these questions, not for everyone, but for all undergraduates at our university, The Australian National University (ANU). In particular, we were asked to ensure that all ANU graduates would be able to work with others to understand and creatively address amorphous and complex problems. More formally, this was described as proposing how undergraduates could develop the “Capability to Employ Discipline-based Knowledge in Transdisciplinary Problem Solving.”