Latest contribution
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.
The microlevel primarily focuses on individual investigators and small teams working in a single location. Examples of ethical issues at this level are avoiding research misconduct such as plagiarism, conflicts of interest, and detrimental practices.
Recent contributions
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.
Three pillars for inclusive stakeholder engagement in participatory modeling
By Victoria Herbig, Stephanie Briers, and Bianca Vienni-Baptista.
2. Stephanie Briers (biography)
3. Bianca Vienni-Baptista (biography)
How can we ensure that technically sophisticated models represent diverse stakeholder perspectives, knowledge, and interests? More specifically, how can we improve:
- who is included to represent stakeholders,
- engagement dynamics and stakeholder empowerment, and
- genuine deliberation that embeds stakeholder contributions in the model?
Drawing on participatory modeling and transdisciplinary research, we have identified a framework of three interlinked pillars for inclusive stakeholder engagement:
- stakeholder representation (who is included?),
- engagement dynamics (how are the stakeholders included?), and
- collective decision-making (how is their knowledge included?).
Highlighted contributions
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.
Of course, it’s important to avoid the situation where just about everything qualifies as a synthesis.
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:
Using archetypes as a systemic lens to understand the complexity of sustainable development
By Hossein Hosseini, Enayat A. Moallemi, Sibel Eker, Edoardo Bertone and Katrina Szetey
What are systems archetypes and how can they be used to bring a deeper understanding of causal drivers, potential dynamic behaviour in the future, and policy resistance when tackling complex problems, including those in sustainable development?
Systems archetypes are recurring generic systems structures found in many kinds of organisations, under many circumstances, and at many levels and scales. They are distinctive combinations of reinforcing and balancing processes theoretically rooted in systems thinking and modelling.
There are eight common archetypes,