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.
Within any format, researchers and their practice partners draw on specific methods: workshops, interviews, role-plays, mapping exercises, and so on.
We define junctions as dynamic spaces where researchers and practice partners continuously negotiate the fit between context and format plus methods, which is a nuanced, often bidirectional relationship. Negotiating at junctions allows for active, iterative design decisions throughout the research process that can also deal with the challenges and frictions that inevitably emerge.
We identified four key areas for negotiation at junctions: adaptivity, hierarchy, inclusiveness and trust.
Adaptivity
Adaptivity is about adjusting format and methods as circumstances change―a new government, a new team member, a pandemic―while also recognising that the format chosen at the outset determines the capacities to adapt later. For example, what works from an academic perspective may be disconnected from the day-to-day priorities and availability of practice partners and may therefore need to be adapted.
A useful question to ask is: which context conditions matter most for your choice of format and methods, and how would you know if they needed to change?
Hierarchy
Hierarchy captures the power imbalances that run through transdisciplinary collaboration―within a research team, between science and practice, and especially between partners from the Global North and Global South. Format choices can either entrench these imbalances or help expose and soften them.
A useful question to ask is: what hierarchical structures―resource disparities, language barriers, institutional power―exist within your team and beyond it, and how might your choice of format make them more transparent or even enable participation for those with less formal power? (See also inclusiveness below.)
Inclusiveness
Inclusiveness is about whose knowledge and perspectives get integrated into a project, and how. Inclusive participation mostly depends on how much room there is for perspectives to be heard and the availability of resources, particularly of those with non-institutional backgrounds. For example, using arts-based methods, such as poetry slams and songwriting, can allow practice partners to participate on their own terms.
A useful question to ask is: whose ideas and epistemologies are currently included in your process, who is missing, and which format or methods might best engage them?
Trust
Trust is both a precondition for collaboration and something that has to be built and rebuilt through deliberate design choices. Respected community members or long-standing local collaborators who already have a standing with the people a project wants to reach can act as “door-openers.” A door opener signals legitimacy, translates between different social groups, and smooths the way for practice partners who might otherwise have kept their distance from the research, especially in settings where there is little trust or historical conflicts.
A useful question to ask is: what is the current level of trust between the different actors in your project, why is that, and which of your methods could help you (re-)build trust?
Putting junctions to work
Recognising junctions matters because they determine whether design choices translate into equitable collaboration and meaningful outcomes. We find these considerations useful:
- Map adaptivity, hierarchy, inclusiveness and trust at the outset of your project, asking in turn, where things currently stand, and define measures to maintain or strengthen that position.
- Build iterative reflection―regular exchanges or inclusive sessions―into the project timeline. Continuous reflection and formative evaluation can help to adapt to changed circumstances, and transparent communication can build trust and help counteract entrenched hierarchies both inside and outside the project.
- Think about how much room your format leaves for adaptation and what fits your context best. A tightly sequenced format with a fixed set of methods gives a project a clear methodological backbone but leaves less room to improvise when circumstances shift. A more open format, like an arts-based approach, trades structure for more capacity to improvise or adjust as you go.
- Consider how you can be flexible in funding and timelines for everyone involved, internal and external to the project. Ongoing learning and changing take time and resources, so funding structures need enough space to let projects unfold as the context evolves.
Conclusion
This i2Insights contribution draws on a broad study of interviews and workshops covering 23 transdisciplinary projects worldwide (Frölich et al., 2026). Our discussion of junctions does not cover every tension that can arise in transdisciplinary research, but offers a starting point for thinking, deliberately, about how context and format and methods shape each other throughout a project, rather than only at the design stage.
How have you experienced junctions in your work and how have adaptivity, hierarchy, inclusiveness and trust played out? Are there other ways that you have negotiated the intersection between context, format and methods? Can you share ways of building in the flexibility of funding and time that navigating junctions seems to require?
To find out more:
Frölich, N. M., Rhodius, R., Jauer, L., Mbah, M., Weiser, A. and Lang, D. J. (2026). Navigating four junctions: A framework to design context- and format-sensitive transdisciplinary research. Sustainability Science. (Online – open access): https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-026-01848-2
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 5 was used during preparation of this i2Insights contribution to improve clarity and conciseness. All AI-generated suggestions were critically reviewed by the authors, who retained full responsibility for deciding whether to incorporate, modify, or reject them. (For i2Insights policy on artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Nina Maria Frölich MA is a researcher at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. Her current research focuses on the development of transdisciplinary research that promotes amplification processes in international contexts.
Biography: Melanie Mbah PhD is senior researcher and research coordinator for transdisciplinary sustainability research at the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) in Freiburg, Germany. Her main areas of interest are: transdisciplinary research on formats and methods as well as in thematic fields such as energy and heat transition as well as nuclear waste disposal.