Latest contribution
The multidimensional process of co-creation: Five consistent dimensions
By Katrina Messiha.
How can we avoid co-creation being used as a general term for any form of stakeholder engagement? Are there key dimensions that co-creation processes should aim to consider?
Based on analysis across 9 research fields, several types of co-creation and explicit theories, colleagues and I (Messiha et al., 2025) argue that co-creation is a multidimensional process, with five dimensions:
- Multi-stakeholder collaborative action;
- Process of co-learning towards innovation;
- Contextual knowledge production;
- Generating meaning; and,
- Open, trustful and inclusive dialogue.
These dimensions offer a conceptual tool for planning, examining and strengthening co-creation research.
Recent contributions
Fulfillment, balance and process: Co-active coaching principles for team science
By Joanna Kaniewska and Gemma Jiang.
2. Gemma Jiang (biography)
What is Co-Active Coaching and how can it be applied in teams?
Co-Active Coaching (Kimsey-House et al., 2018) is a coaching method built on the premise that people are naturally creative, resourceful, and capable of finding their own answers. Rather than acting as an expert or trainer who gives solutions, the coach partners with coachees in a collaborative process that helps them gain clarity, make intentional choices, and create meaningful change.
In this i2Insights contribution, we focus on the three core principles of Co-Active Coaching—fulfillment, balance, and process—and show how they can be used in teamwork.
Fulfillment: reconnecting people to their purpose
Fulfillment coaching is about connecting work to meaning. It can be particularly useful when team members are disengaged, anxious, or questioning the value of their work.
How could research ethics governance better support participatory, transdisciplinary, and transformation-oriented research?
By Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang and Julia Wittmayer.
2. Julia Wittmayer (biography)
How can we design an ethics governance system that can better respond when ethical dilemmas emerge after institutional approval has been granted?
This question is increasingly pressing for researchers engaged in participatory, transdisciplinary, and transformative work. Ethical concerns often arise in-situ where partnerships evolve, power dynamics shift, community expectations change, and research begins to have effects beyond the original project design.
These concerns do not fit neatly into conventional ethics review procedures at universities, which still tend to be organised around upfront review: researchers submit an application, a committee assesses it, and approval is granted before the research begins. This model matters for safeguarding participants, researchers, and institutions. But it is increasingly misaligned with the type of engaged research that emphasises social learning and democratically deliberative process for positive societal change.
Leading with Lived Experience across the research life cycle
By Catherine Brasier, Dan Chamberlain and Sarah Wilson.
2. Dan Chamberlain (biography)
3. Sarah Wilson (biography)
How can researchers and people with Lived Experience expertise effectively and authentically work together in Lived-Experience-centred research?
Along with colleagues, we have developed a structured approach, namely the “Wellways Six Steps of the Research Life Cycle,” which is shown in the figure below and described, along with 16 key actions. The aim is to help researchers and people with Lived Experience expertise to “work it out together.”
People with Lived Experience expertise demonstrate deep understanding of the following elements to drive their input:
- their own personal experience of the issue at hand
- their understanding of other people’s Lived Experiences
- Lived Experience values and practices
- the history of the Lived Experience movement – including the impact of the systemic and social factors.
Accountability in two different teamwork environments: The jigsaw puzzle and the collage
By Allison Dalton, Yvonne Pelling and Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano.
2. Yvonne Pelling (biography)
3. Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano (biography)
How can teams demonstrate accountability in two different collaborative environments?
Accountability refers to the ways, both tangible and intangible, of showing up for ourselves and the rest of the team throughout a collaborative project. It gives rise to trust and forward momentum which impacts team functioning and ultimately the outcome of the work.
Here we look at accountability in two different collaborative environments, which we refer to using the metaphors of the jigsaw puzzle and the collage.
A team tasked with assembling a jigsaw puzzle deals with a finite set of clearly distinguished pieces, each to be fitted together in one correct way, and a reference image to demonstrate what the outcome will look like.
Highlighted contributions
Institutionalizing evidence-informed policy-making in Latin America and the Caribbean / Institucionalizando la toma de decisiones informadas por evidencias en Latinoamérica y el Caribe/ Institucionalizando a formulação de políticas informadas em evidências na América Latina e Caribe
By Directors and Coordinators of the Latin American and the Caribbean Evidence Hub
A Spanish version and a Portuguese version of this post are available
How is the routine use of evidence in policy in Latin America and the Caribbean progressing? How is it being institutionalized?
We provide a brief history of key initiatives to institutionalize evidence-informed policy making mechanisms in the region.
Decolonising research capacity development
By Maru Mormina and Romina Istratii
2. Romina Istratii (biography)
Why do many countries in the Global South remain behind when it comes to knowledge production and use, despite decades-long efforts to strengthen research capacity?
We think this is because the North still looks at the South with a ‘deficit mentality,’ according to which the latter has the problems and the former the solutions. From this standpoint, northern-led capacity development initiatives fail to recognise the South’s rich and diverse knowledge traditions and systems. Instead, they continue to impose monolithic blueprints of knowledge production, therefore re-inscribing colonial patterns of intellectual Western hegemony.
Of course, in many countries, research systems need support but current approaches are at best producing mixed results. A decolonial lens can help us identify alternative models.
Decolonising research capacity development in principle
Five core competency areas for participatory modeling
By Sondoss Elsawah, Elena Bakhanova, Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Alexey Voinov
2. Elena Bakhanova (biography)
3. Raimo P. Hämäläinen (biography)
4. Alexey Voinov (biography)
What knowledge and skills do individuals and teams need to be effective at participatory modeling?
We suggest that five core competency areas are essential for participatory modeling:
- systems thinking
- modeling
- group facilitation
- project management and leadership
- operating in the virtual space.
These are illustrated in the figure below.
These competency areas have naturally overlapping elements and should therefore be seen as a holistic and interdependent set.
Pragmatism and critical systems thinking: Back to the future of systems thinking
By Michael C. Jackson
Would systems thinking realize its potential as a force for good in the world if it rediscovered and developed its pragmatist roots? Does the link between the past and future of systems thinking lie through critical systems thinking and practice?
In brief, I suggest that:
- Pragmatism provides an appropriate philosophy for systems thinking.
- Systems thinking has pragmatist roots.
- Critical systems thinking and practice shows how to develop those roots.
- Pragmatism can help systems thinking realize its potential and systems thinking can help pragmatism achieve what it set out to do.
What is pragmatism?