By Hanna Salomon, Benjamin Hofmann and Sabine Hoffmann.
2. Benjamin Hofmann (biography)
3. Sabine Hoffmann (biography)
What roles do researchers typically play in inter- and transdisciplinary projects? How can they be made transparent in order to reflect on them?
Inter- and transdisciplinary projects typically require different roles and the researchers involved may play one or more of them. There is a plethora of literature describing various ideal-typical roles and we used the literature on researchers’ roles in sustainability science to develop a reflection tool on researcher roles in inter- and transdisciplinary projects.
A Role Reflection Tool
The reflection tool consists of a role survey for individual researchers, a spider web graph for immediate role visualization on the individual and project team level, and a set of questions for individual and project team reflections. All these elements can be implemented in a workshop setting of around one to one and a half hours.
The role survey operationalizes six roles in the form of three typical tasks per role, shown in the table below. A researcher filling out the survey decides for each task whether she/he performs this task in the context of the specific inter- and transdisciplinary project (assigning it a score of 1 if performed, and 0 if not).
The total score for each role can therefore range from 0 to 3. Once aggregated, the scores for all six roles are transferred into a spider web graph to obtain the individual role profile of the researcher.
The individual role profiles can be laid on top of each other in a project-level spider web graph to see which roles are most strongly present within the project team and which ones are less represented. We provide an example in the figure below which compares senior and junior researchers in two projects related to sustainable agriculture (called TRAPEGO) and ecosystem management (called TREBRIDGE).
A further set of questions for individuals and project teams is provided to spark reflection, notably about opportunities and challenges of different role combinations, potential coping strategies on the individual level and the alignment of roles performed by the team with the project goals. At the individual level, the questions are:
- What opportunities do you experience with respect to your roles (eg., in terms of synergies, resources, expectations)?
- What challenges do you face with respect to your roles (eg., in terms of tensions between specific roles, resources, expectations)?
- What coping strategies have you developed to seize these opportunities or address these challenges?
At the project level, the questions are:
- To what extent does the combination of roles in your team fit the project goals?
- What opportunities and challenges does the combination of roles in the project entail, and what coping strategies do you see?
We have observed that the role reflection tool:
- Sparked broader discussions about role distribution within projects.
- Facilitated conscious decisions about researchers’ roles, which supports collaboration within projects.
- Is versatile, as it can be adapted to the unique circumstances of an inter- and transdisciplinary research project, for example, by adding, excluding, or exchanging certain roles or by adapting the reflection questions.
Concluding questions
What has been your experience with different roles of researchers in inter- and transdisciplinary research projects? Do you see value in using the role reflection tool in your setting? How could it be adapted to include stakeholders from outside of academia?
To find out more:
Hofmann, B., Salomon, H. and Hoffmann, S. (2025). Roles of researchers in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research: A reflection tool. Sustainability Science. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01619-x
An example workshop outline is available in the supplementary material of the publication (at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-024-01619-x#Sec14).
Much of the text in this i2Insights contribution was taken verbatim from the paper and the paper also provides detailed references.
Biography: Hanna Salomon is a doctoral candidate at Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, in Duebendorf and ETH Zurich, both in Switzerland. Her research interests include researchers’ roles and interdisciplinary integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research projects over time.
Biography: Benjamin Hofmann PhD is a scientist in environmental social sciences at Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, in Duebendorf, Switzerland. He conducts and leads inter- and transdisciplinary research on evidence use for sustainable policy and practice and on broader science-society relations in the context of environmental change.