Latest contribution
Repeat photography in transdisciplinary research
By Matthias Bürgi, Elena G. Siegrist and Tamara Estermann.
2. Elena G. Siegrist (biography)
3. Tamara Estermann (biography)
How can we visualise changes in landscapes such as melting glaciers, expanding forests, and changes in agriculture and settlement structure? How can such visualisations be incorporated into participatory research processes?
A prime source for documenting landscapes at the local scale and from a human perspective is repeated terrestrial photographs from the same location under similar conditions. Repeat photography is the creation of “then and now” pairs by retaking historical photographs from the same location. This is useful for scientific research, as well as to raise community awareness of landscape changes.
Here we describe how repeat photography can be used, as well as its strengths and weaknesses, highlighting its value for transdisciplinary sustainability science.
Recent contributions
Ethical considerations for large interdisciplinary networks
By Evelyn Brister, Erin Shoemaker, Susan M. Wolf and Gillian H. Roehrig.
2. Erin Shoemaker (biography)
3. Susan M. Wolf (biography)
4. Gillian H. Roehrig (biography)
What problems in research ethics arise for research networks that cross disciplines and institutions? How do they differ from the ethical issues affecting individual researchers or society at large? What are the lessons for leaders of large research networks?
Addressing complex, real-world problems requires expertise from multiple disciplines. Large, diverse research teams that address these problems may be organized across multiple universities or other research institutions. The larger scale of this network science creates distinctive ethical responsibilities.
To identify responsibilities that fall on network leaders, it is useful to consider ethical issues at three levels: micro, meso, and macro.
Nine steps for a just transition pathway
By Caroline A. van der Weerdt, Antonio De Carluccio, Anouck Guillou and Julia C. Broderick-Hale.
2. Antonio De Carluccio (biography)
3. Anouck Guillou (biography)
4. Julia C. Broderick-Hale (biography)
How can research and innovation projects that aim to support major societal transitions, such as cleaner energy, more sustainable food systems, smarter mobility, and better digital services progress from being pilot projects to affecting systemic change? How can they move from being focused on the solution to attending to the wider system in which the solution must land, examining benefits, costs, decision-making processes and which policies, behaviours, infrastructures and power relations need to change? How do these questions relate to a just transition pathway and how can researchers operationalise the underlying principles?
A just transition pathway is a structured, forward-looking process for connecting practical innovations to wider systemic change.
Four negotiation areas at junctions between context, format and methods in transdisciplinary research
By Nina Maria Frölich and Melanie Mbah.
2. Melanie Mbah (biography)
How can transdisciplinary researchers bring together context, format and methods in a way that recognises their interdependence and their dynamic nature?
Much existing guidance on transdisciplinary research treats context as one design task, and the choice of format and methods as another, separate task. However it is more realistic to see them as interdependent, and that the relationship between them keeps shifting throughout a project.
By context we mean the organisational, political, socio-economic, socio-ecological, cultural, hierarchical, spatial, and temporal structures that frame a transdisciplinary project, as well as the team dynamics and types of knowledge involved.
By format we mean the overall structure that carries a project through its phases, from framing the problem together, through generating new knowledge, to feeding results back into practice―for example a real-world laboratory, a Theory of Change process, an arts-based approach or a step-by-step guide.
Why research needs complexity entrepreneurs
By Gabriele Bammer and Jean Boulton.
2. Jean Boulton (biography)
What is required to improve the understanding of research teams about the complexity encountered when investigating real life situations? How can they effectively embrace the paradoxical, elusive dance―the irreconcilable, intrinsic tension―between order and disorder, form and formlessness, and certainty and uncertainty? What is involved in research better supporting those intent on, or tasked with, acting skilfully in this complex world? Would a new research role―that of complexity entrepreneur―help?
We have coined the term “complexity entrepreneur” as a shorthand way to describe the attributes required to respond effectively in a world that is complex: ie., systemic, patterned and particular to context, and where newness often emerges in ways that cannot be predicted.
In this i2Insights contribution, we outline the key attributes of a complexity entrepreneur, based on Jean’s work. We then briefly describe the contributions of complexity entrepreneurs to research teams tackling complex problems, combining Gabriele’s and Jean’s work. Our aim is to test the water to see if others would also find benefit in distinguishing this newly-coined role of complexity entrepreneur.
Highlighted contributions
Key systems thinking lessons from Donella Meadows
By Geoff Marlow
The book “Thinking In Systems: A Primer” by Donella (Dana) Meadows (2008) offers a useful entry point into systems thinking via seven lessons.
Lesson 1: Systems are always more than the sum of their parts
Feedback loops are pivotal, as is looking beyond the players to the underlying rules of the game.
Meadows (p. 13) offers guidance as to “whether you are looking at a system or just a bunch of stuff:
- Can you identify parts? . . . and
- Do the parts affect each other? . . . and
- Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own? . . . and perhaps
- Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of circumstances?”
Towards a taxonomy of synthesizing
By Howard Gardner
“Synthesis” seems to be in the atmosphere. The capacity to synthesize, the need for syntheses, and improvement of the quality of syntheses—these are seemingly of interest to many.
A preliminary working definition:
A synthesis is an attempt to bring together various ideas, strands, concepts, and materials. A good synthesis enhances one’s understanding of a question, puzzle, phenomenon (or multiples of these). Familiar examples are school term papers, doctoral dissertations, position papers, landscape analyses, executive summaries, and textbooks. But one can easily extend the list beyond the verbal—to chemical syntheses, equations in physics or mathematics, works of art (poems, paintings, dioramas)—indeed any creation or invention that brings together disparate elements in a satisfying and illuminating way.
Using the arts to flip understanding: An arts intervention for non-arts researchers
By Margot Greenlee, Martina Jerant and Veronica Dittman Stanich
2. Martina Jerant (biography)
3. Veronica Dittman Stanich (biography)
What do the arts bring to interdisciplinary research? Can arts practices lead STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) researchers to new insights on their work?
We—a choreographer-and-professional-facilitator (Margot), a scientist-athlete-facilitator-entrepreneur (Martina), and a dancer-turned-arts-researcher (Veronica)—had a hunch that the arts have something to offer STEMM researchers: a different understanding of their own work.
We posited that thoughts are intertwined with actions, and when there is no opportunity to do things differently, it’s hard to think differently—to get a fresh perspective. By “actions”, we mean the practices researchers do every day as part of their work: for example, read, collect data, analyze data, present ideas in written form, revise that writing.
Towards a theory of change to institutionalise integration experts and expertise
By The Aeschiried Integrators
Integration experts and expertise are crucial for realising the full potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research. However, the expertise of those who lead integration is poorly recognized in the current academic system and these academics often experience a range of impediments to their careers. What can be done to recognise integration experts and expertise and to support the careers of such experts?
We define integration experts as specialists “who lead, administer, manage, monitor, assess, accompany, and/or advise others on integration” in order to achieve the full potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research (Hoffmann et al. 2022).
This i2Insights contribution presents the results of a pilot workshop held in Aeschiried, a mountain village in Switzerland, in February 2023 to develop a theory of change focused on Germany and Switzerland to achieve the following: