Results from your search will be shown on this page below the search form – you may need to scroll down to the results if the page does not automatically take you there after you submit your search.
Instructions:
- All blog posts are searched (pages from the menu are not searched)
- Search outputs are weighted by relevance.
- If searching with two or more words, the system uses an AND operator.
- Selecting a tag, author tag and/or category binds the search to only those posts which have those taxonomy term/s.
- A search output can be obtained by filling out any one field (ie., the search box; or, categories; or, tags; or, authors). If all fields are left blank, then the search returns the blog scroll.
- Exact word combinations can be searched for by using quotation marks (eg., “transdisciplinary learning”).
- Keyword matching is on partial words.
- The reset button (beneath the ‘Submit search’ button) will clear all entries in the search form, as will clicking on the ‘Search…’ link in the top of the right sidebar; or, reloading the page.
- Stopwords are used and for more information on stopwords and how search generally works on this page, see the ‘in-detail’ instructions below.
The search function checks all blog posts but not pages (ie., it does not check the ‘About’, ‘Index’ and other pages listed in the main menu).
For posts, search checks within titles, body text, category and tag text (and not comments).
Searches are weighted by relevance, with affects the order in which posts appear, with titles and content getting the most weighting, tags and categories lesser weighting.
Increasing the number of search terms and selections generally focuses the search output (ie., decreases the number of outputs).
Keyword matching is based on whole words.
If you enter two or more words into the search box, the relationship between the words is based on an AND operator (meaning the more words you add, the tighter (less content is returned in) the search output).
- For example, entering transdisciplinary learning into the search box would provide an output that lists all posts with both the word transdisciplinary and the word learning anywhere in the text. Posts with only transdisciplinary in the text or posts with only learning in the text would not be included in the output.
To find a specific word combination (eg., critical systems), wrap in quotation marks (ie., “critical systems“).
The search system uses ‘stopwords’; which are words that are overly common and so are excluded from being searched for if they are put into the search field (in order to avoid flooding the user with results). For example, words such as ‘has’, ‘sometimes’, ’whether’ are stopwords and can’t be searched on individually (that is, no search result will be returned). Such stopwords can be entered as part of a string of words, but as they are not in the search index they do not count towards the search output. There are also words that are very common across our blog posts and which we allow (to be searched on). These words relate to the way we build the content of our posts (eg., ‘biography’; ‘online’) or are related to the blog’s subject matter (eg., ‘research’, ‘university’). Just be aware that if you search on such words (either alone or in a string), you will get a very large number of results. At the time of writing, the following words are examples to avoid using: biography; change; development; experience; knowledge; science; PhD; policy; practice; process; research; social; time; university; work. A good rule of thumb if using a single search term and if there are a lot of results returned (in 2026, there were over 500 blog posts on this site), is to use one or more of the other fields (eg., tag), or add extra search terms to the search field, or try a different term that speaks to what you are searching for.
When you open a post that was found by your search, you can find where your specific word or word combination appears by using your computer’s search function (eg., on a computer running Microsoft Windows, Control ‘F’ will allow you to search the post (as well as anything else in the active screen)).
Restrict searches to particular tags, categories and/or author tags by using the dropdown selectors.
- Eg., if you choose the tag Advocacy, the search will only be conducted within posts that have that tag assigned to them.
- If you added the category Cases to that search, then only posts that had both the tag Advocacy and the category Cases assigned to them would be searched.
An alternative to selecting categories, tags or authors from their respective long drop-down list is to type the term or author name you are looking for in the relevant selector field. Typing one letter will jump to the lead word in the alphabetical listing (ie, typing ‘s’ takes you to the first tag or category in the list of those starting with ‘s’). Further addition of letters will home in on a tag, category or author until it is found or until the choice of letters exhausts the possible set of tags, categories or authors (in which case that tag, category or author is not in our list). NOTE: all authors are also available in reverse name order under ‘Authors‘ in the menu bar.
In the category, tag and author dropdown list, the number in brackets after each entry indicates the number of posts with that category, tag or author assigned to them.
Tags or authors with a zero in brackets “(0)”, placed after the tag or author text, are not currently linked to any blog posts. In the case of tags, most of these tags identify alternative tags, which, if searched, will yield a result. For example, “Assumptions – see ‘Mental models’ tag (0)” signifies that blog posts about ‘assumptions’ are tagged with ‘mental models’ and not ‘assumptions.’ Occasionally there will be a tag (or author tag) with “(0)” which refers to a new tag (or author tag) on a blog post which has not yet been made public. This tag (or author tag) will be searchable once the blog post is public (usually within a week).
For the category selector, choosing one of the two parent categories (main topics or resource types) searches all blog posts, as all blog posts are assigned a main topic and a resource type.
Three dimensions of context
By Gabriele Bammer.
In research tackling complex societal and environmental problems, what is involved in taking context into account when aiming for more comprehensive understanding of a problem, as well as research support for policy and practice change so that the problem is better dealt with?
As outlined in my work developing Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S), considering context involves dealing with circumstances at three levels:
- social or big picture, eg., the historical, political, economic, cultural, geographical and other circumstances
- organizational, especially the structure and culture of the research and stakeholder organisations involved
- individual, especially the positionality or identity of researchers and stakeholders.
Four lessons for pursuing participatory action-oriented PhD research inside the university system
By Raymond Hyma and Javier García Martínez.
2. Javier García Martínez (biography)
What happens when participatory, relational, and action-oriented inquiry meets the institutional architecture of the PhD: tight timelines, individual authorship, and demands for methodological certainty? What does it mean to pursue participatory and action oriented research as a PhD project inside the university system?
We are PhD candidates in a university alliance connecting Australia and the UK, navigating participatory and action-oriented commitments across two institutional contexts. We noticed that much of the literature about participatory doctorates is written retrospectively, once the thesis is submitted and the mess has been tidied into a coherent story. Our contribution is different: we write from the middle, while decisions are still being negotiated, while constraints are still shaping the work, while we are still learning how to stay accountable to participatory values in real time.
So, what are we learning so far?
Navigating polarities: Fostering both/and mindsets in team science
By Gemma Jiang and Joanna Kaniewska.
2. Joanna Kaniewska (biography)
How can teams develop a mindset that makes differences productive, such as disciplinary differences in work processes, communication styles, underlying assumptions, behavioral norms, and more? In particular, how can teams move from an either/or mindset, which often leads to defensiveness driven by the need to prove that “I am right; you are wrong” to a both/and mindset, which fosters a learning culture in which differences become sources of generative tension that can propel creativity and collective insight?
One practical way to cultivate a both/and mindset is through working with polarities which are opposing yet interdependent tendencies. By integrating both tendencies, teams can move beyond either/or thinking and draw on a wider range of perspectives. We argue that developing the capacity to navigate polarities helps teams navigate differences more effectively overall.
In this i2Insights contribution, we describe three limiting beliefs drawn from our experience with team science coaching and show how they can be transformed through polarity thinking.
Building trust in researching about and engaging with underserved communities
By Katrina Messiha.
How can we ensure that the many people whose lives are shaped by homelessness, migration, poverty, trauma, mental illness, caring responsibilities, social isolation and other contributors to marginalisation are adequately represented and well engaged with in relevant research?
This is important because if some lives are missing from the evidence base, they may also be missing from the services, policies and practices built upon it. But what happens when researchers try to engage people whose previous encounters with healthcare, welfare, housing, immigration or other public systems, including research, may have been difficult, exhausting or even harmful?
The usual language used to describe such people is “hard to reach,” “seldom heard” or “difficult to engage.” These phrases may be commonly used and well intended, but they can hide a pressing question: Where does trust already exist and how can research begin there?
Cultivating epistemic humility in research teams
By Faye Miller.
What makes it so challenging for research teams to be truly receptive to being wrong? And what can teams do to make doubt expressible and useful?
Being aware that knowledge is always situational, incomplete, and prone to error, as well as the willingness to hold opinions tentatively, be receptive to change, and recognise the boundaries of understanding, are all components of epistemic humility. Humility about what one knows and can know is an intellectual quality in individual researchers. Yet epistemic humility also has a structural dimension: which doubts get expressed, whose knowledge is heard, and how teams handle what they don’t yet know, are challenges that go beyond the individual researcher to shape how research teams function.
This i2Insights contribution is an attempt to highlight two challenges that need to be addressed:
- the confidence trap, built on the pressure to exude certainty, and
- the silence trap, arising from the social dynamics that can suppress productive doubt.
Tinkering workshops: Exploring children’s perceptions of problems and potential solutions
By Ina Opitz, Melanie Kryst, Pia von den Benken and Audrey Podann.
2. Melanie Kryst (biography)
3. Pia von den Benken (biography)
4. Audrey Podann (biography)
How can children’s everyday experiences and perceptions of problems and solutions be made accessible for potential inclusion in transdisciplinary research? How can these processes also be used to familiarise children with the fundamentals of transdisciplinarity?
We have developed a three-hour “tinkering workshop,” based on design science principles, to encourage children to think about their environment and identify problems and solutions in a playful and creative way.
Our tinkering workshop is suitable for children aged between 9 and 12 years. We have tried it out in four workshops with a total of 56 children, focusing on the problem of plastic waste.