Current post
Responding to unacknowledged disciplinary differences with the Toolbox dialogue method
By Graham Hubbs, Michael O’Rourke, Steven Hecht Orzack
2. Michael O’Rourke (biography)
3. Steven Hecht Orzack (biography)
Have you collaborated with people on a complex project and wondered why it is so difficult? Perhaps you’ve asked yourself, “Do my collaborators even conceive of the project and its goals in the way I do?” Projects involving collaborators from different disciplines or professions seem almost ready made to generate this kind of bewilderment. Collaborators on cross-disciplinary projects like these often ask different kinds of questions and pursue different kinds of answers.
This confusion can bedevil cross-disciplinary research. The allure of such research is its promise of solving complex problems by bringing together a variety of perspectives that when combined lead to solutions that any one perspective would fail to find. But combining different disciplinary perspectives also requires undertaking the tasks of translating different technical languages, reconciling different methodological preferences, and coordinating different ways of carving up the world. These tasks are difficult and it’s no wonder that cross-disciplinary research often fails to be truly cross-disciplinary.
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Recent posts
Do we need diversity science?
By Katrin Prager
Where do the benefits of diverse teams come from and how can those benefits be unlocked? What are the pitfalls to watch out for in constructing a team that is greater than the sum of its parts?
To boost innovation and creativity in teams I suggest we need to develop diversity science, which has 5 elements:
- identifying the right kind of diversity
- avoiding homophily
- avoiding dominance hierarchies
- fostering appropriate leadership
- building and protecting trust.
Let’s unpack each of these elements.
Visions of knowledge systems for life on Earth and how to get there
By Niko Schäpke and Ioan Fazey
2. Ioan Fazey (biography)
How should formalized knowledge systems, including universities, research institutes and education, transform to keep pace with wider and inevitable societal transformations associated with accelerating global change? What kinds of changes are needed in these knowledge systems and how can they be encouraged?
These questions were explored by participants of the Transformations 2017 conference and in subsequent research (Fazey et al., 2020). This included highlighting current challenges, envisioning future systems and the policy and actions required for the transition. These are summarized in the figure below.
Read moreVisions of knowledge systems for life on Earth and how to get there
Addressing societal challenges: From interdisciplinarity to research portfolios analysis
By Ismael Rafols
How can knowledge integration for addressing societal challenges be mapped, ‘measured’ and assessed?
In this blog post I argue that measuring averages or aggregates of ‘interdisciplinarity’ is not sufficiently focused for evaluating research aimed at societal contributions. Instead, one should take a portfolio approach to analyze knowledge integration as a systemic process over research landscapes; in particular, focusing on the directions, diversity and synergies of research trajectories.
There are two main reasons:
1. since knowledge integration for societal challenges is a systemic and dynamic process, we need broad and plural perspectives and therefore we should use a battery of analytical tools, as developed for example in research portfolio analysis, rather than a narrow focus on interdisciplinarity.
Read moreAddressing societal challenges: From interdisciplinarity to research portfolios analysis
Can foresight and complexity play together?
By James E. Burke
What is foresight and how does it differ from prediction? What role can complexity play in foresight? Does Cynefin® offer a possible framework to begin integrating foresight and complexity?
In this blog post, I describe how:
- Foresight identifies clues for the future and integrates them into forecasts
- Complexity theory offers ways to understand how the future emerges
- Cynefin® gives us a framework of domains that allows us to better understand trends and forecasts.
What is foresight?
Foresight starts from a place of humility—we cannot predict the future—and an acceptance of ambiguity.
Highlighted posts on stakeholders
A flexible framework for stakeholder engagement
By Michelle Banfield
How can stakeholder engagement in research be effectively planned? What parameters need to be taken into account? How can flexibility be built in to accommodate different levels of researcher and stakeholder experience?
The framework presented here was developed for health services research, but is more broadly applicable. The framework has three separate dimensions.
- The stakeholders to involve
- The stages of the research at which they will be involved
- The level of involvement for each stakeholder group at each stage.
Two lessons for early involvement of stakeholders in research
By Obasanjo Oyedele, Martin Atela and Ayo Ojebode
2. Martin Atela (biography)
3. Ayo Ojebode (biography)
A fundamental principle for conducting research that is easily put to use by stakeholders is to involve them in the research process as early as possible. But how can the inertia and lack of interest that stakeholders often have at this stage be overcome?
We provide two lessons from our experience of involving stakeholders as early as the research launch.
Read moreTwo lessons for early involvement of stakeholders in research
Responding to stakeholders – lessons learnt
By Klaus Hubacek and Christina Prell
2. Christina Prell (biography)
Being responsive to stakeholder interests and suggestions is important for successful participatory modeling. We share lessons from an exciting, five year project in the UK entitled the ‘Sustainable Uplands’. The project sought to bring together a variety of groups ranging from academics, policy makers, residents, conservationists, and different ‘end user’ groups that all, in some way, held a stake in upland park areas in the UK.
Our process was iterative, tacking back and forth between field work, consultations among the research team, consultations with non-academic stakeholders, and modeling. Not only were our models heavily influenced by what stakeholders told us were important values and considerations regarding upland areas, but these also informed how we went about gathering the data.
Where are the stakeholders in implementation science?
By Allison Metz and Annette Boaz
2. Annette Boaz (biography)
Should implementation science make more room for consultation, collaboration and co-creation with stakeholders? Would finding more active roles for stakeholders in implementation science be a promising approach to increasing the use of research evidence for improvements in policy and services?
The goal of implementation science is to promote the sustainable implementation of research evidence at scale to improve population outcomes, especially in health and human services. Nevertheless, the mobilization of research evidence on the frontlines of health and human services has been quite limited, especially in public agencies serving the vast majority of consumers.
Read moreWhere are the stakeholders in implementation science?