Context – Integration and Implementation Insights

Three dimensions of context

July 7, 2026June 30, 2026

gabriele-bammer_nov-2021 — Gabriele Bammer (biography)

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.

Each of these dimensions of context has widespread ramifications, affecting:

how a problem manifests and is understood, including what is studied and how, as well as the unknowns considered to be pertinent
what actions are likely to be considered and to have a chance of being successful.

The essential conditions for, and characteristics of, complexity

May 5, 2026May 5, 2026

By Jean Boulton.

What are the underpinning necessities or conditions—the essential ingredients—that lead to and engender the qualities or characteristics of the complex world, especially its processual and emergent nature?

Three conditions for complexity: the essential ingredients

A watch or intricate machine is not complex. Nor is a saucer of water. So, when do we regard something as complex? What are the necessary conditions for complexity fully to be realised?

These are:

open boundaries
diversity
reflexive inter-relationships among constituents.

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

A framework for considering context in evaluation of transdisciplinary research projects

April 21, 2026March 31, 2026

By Julia Schegg, Rea Pärli, Manuel Fischer and Eva Lieberherr.

authors_schegg_parli_fischer_lieberherr — 1. Julia Schegg (biography)
2. Rea Pärli (biography)
3. Manuel Fischer (biography)
4. Eva Lieberherr (biography)

How do contextual factors influence the effects of transdisciplinary research projects? How can assessment of transdisciplinary research move from only considering outcome effectiveness to understanding the reasons behind how and why something works?

Our framework considers both context and the effects of transdisciplinary research projects, as summarised in the figure below. Each aspect of the framework is described in more detail.

Context

Navigating power: A partial pragmatic map

December 2, 2025December 2, 2025

By Katie Moon.

In research, how can we start to appreciate unexamined assumptions about what power is, where it resides, how it works, and who holds it, especially how these assumptions influence not only the problems we recognize, but the solutions we pursue? And importantly, who decides? How can we get a better idea of how power informs how we act: what interventions we attempt, whose knowledge we value, whose interests we centre, and what consequences we anticipate?

In this i2Insights contribution I provide an intentionally simplified orienting map that disaggregates power into six dimensions that mirror the ways researchers tend to separate and locate power into distinct domains to rationalise and evaluate interventions. I match these dimensions to three onto-epistemological frames—objective, constructionist, and relational—which were described in a previous i2Insights contribution A guide to ontology, epistemology, and philosophical perspectives for interdisciplinary researchers.

Considering context in transdisciplinary research: A framework and reflective questions

August 26, 2025August 26, 2025

By Nina Maria Frölich and Annika Weiser.

authors_nina-maria-frölich_annika-weiser — 1. Nina Maria Frölich (biography)
2. Annika Weiser (biography)

Which contextual factors affect the design, processes, methods and outcomes of transdisciplinary research projects? How can they best be considered by teams designing transdisciplinary research?

Most would agree that context matters, especially in transdisciplinary approaches. But how can we make it work for us in designing impactful context-sensitive transdisciplinary research? Here we provide a useful framework that structures the various aspects of “context,” here understood as a combination of circumstances that interact with and influence a transdisciplinary research project. Based on theoretical literature, as well as an analysis of 17 semi-structured interviews about international transdisciplinary research projects (Tolksdorf et al., 2025), we identified three dimensions, with a total of nine key context factors, illustrated in the figure below.

Principles for place-based community participation

July 29, 2025July 1, 2025

By James A. Turner.

james-turner_2025 — James A. Turner (biography)

How can a community’s sense of connection and responsibility to care for their place be strengthened? How can this lead to ground-up change, driven by communities, to tackle complex social, economic, and environmental issues? How can such change draw on the deep sense of care and belonging people feel for their communities and environments to tailor solutions to the unique needs and context of a place?

We identified eleven key principles associated with successful place-based community-led projects. These are the first principles to be developed in-country, rather than being imported from overseas and, because these are place-based, they are specific to Aotearoa New Zealand. We share them here to illustrate what specific place-based principles look like.

Preparing interdisciplinary research teams for transdisciplinary co-production: A framework and diagnostic questions

August 5, 2025June 17, 2025

By Emma Ligtermoet, Claudia Munera-Roldan, Cathy Robinson, Zaynel Sushil and Peat Leith.

authors_ligtermoet_munera-roldan_robinson_sushil_leith — 1. Emma Ligtermoet; 2. Claudia Munera-Roldan; 3. Cathy Robinson; 4. Zaynel Sushil; 5. Peat Leith (biographies)

How can interdisciplinary teams rapidly and collectively diagnose and design effective engagement approaches as they prepare for engaged (transdisciplinary) research? How can they build bridges with non-researcher societal actors to understand differences in language, methodology and even fundamental philosophies about ways and means of understanding the world?

We have developed a framework with context as the central feature, as this shapes all aspects of collaborative work. Context is then used to centre exploration of interconnected elements of positionality, purpose, power and process (4Ps).

Shared deliberation of the research context and the interconnected 4Ps requires an effective collective learning environment, which is upheld by the pillars of equity, trust, openness and inclusivity, and reflexivity.

Three key strategies enabling artificial intelligence to bridge inequities

April 8, 2025

By Kerstin Nothnagel.

With artificial intelligence transforming many aspects of society, from healthcare to education to economic development, how can it be used to reduce rather than perpetuate inequalities? In particular, given that artificial intelligence can widen gaps by exacerbating existing inequalities through biased datasets, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to resources, how can the benefits of artificial intelligence be brought into the reach of low-income nations and marginalised communities? What practical steps can be taken to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and applied in a way that is inclusive and benefits everyone?

My work has been in the health field, but the findings are likely to be more broadly applicable. I suggest three strategies that would enable artificial intelligence to reduce inequities. The first two are key contributions that researchers can make. The third is a call to policy makers and funders. An example is provided for each strategy.

Dealing with imperfection in tackling complex problems

March 4, 2025February 25, 2025

By Gabriele Bammer.

Why is an appreciation of imperfection and its inevitability important for those seeking to understand and act on complex societal and environmental problems? Which traps can imperfection lead to and what are the most effective ways of dealing with it?

The inevitability of imperfection

Imperfection is inevitable both in attempting to develop a comprehensive understanding of complex societal and environmental problems and in acting on them. The multiple underpinning reasons include:

● Complex problems are systems problems, and all systems views are partial, so that the whole system cannot be taken into account. Even then, boundaries need to be set to effectively deploy available resources and these artificial boundaries further constrain understanding of the whole system.

Three spaces of change for reorienting North-South research partnerships

February 7, 2025August 27, 2024

By Geetika Khanduja, Peter Taylor, Andrea Ordóñez, Erica Nelson and Tracy Mamoun

authors_khanduja_taylor_ordonez_nelson_mamoun — 1. Geetika Khanduja; 2. Peter Taylor; 3. Andrea Ordóñez; 4. Erica Nelson; 5. Tracy Mamoun (biographies)

What are some of the challenges that researchers from the Global South face when engaging in development research initiatives, and how can resetting the relationships that underpin North-South collaborations help? What are the pivotal areas where change is needed?

Challenges

The main concerns for many researchers in Global South-based institutions are around the deep-rooted structural challenges that underpin the research for development space, such as:

funding dependence on external sources,
insufficient national expenditures on research,
lack of agency in the design and implementation of research projects,
publication pressures built on problematic Global North “output”-driven demands,
competing incentives for promoting and achieving policy uptake.

Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) 3.0: An updated framework to foster expertise for tackling complex problems

February 24, 2025April 16, 2024

By Gabriele Bammer

How can researchers interested in tackling complex societal and environmental problems easily find and draw on what they need from inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, systems thinking, action research, post-normal science and a range of other ways of combining disciplinary and stakeholder perspectives in order to bring about improvements? How can the necessary expertise be fostered and supported in a systematic way?

These are the questions that I have been addressing for more than 20 years in considering whether a new discipline – Integration and Implementation Sciences or i2S – could provide a way forward. i2S 3.0 is the third conceptualization of this discipline and the current version is summarised in the figure below.

At this stage in its development, i2S is focused on providing a framework and conduit for sharing concepts, methods, processes and other tools that are currently fragmented across inter- and transdisciplinarity, systems thinking, action research, post-normal science and other approaches.

Five questions for considering political context

March 26, 2024

Edited by Gabriele Bammer

editors-addition_political-context

How can researchers rapidly assess the political and institutional environment in which they are trying to exert influence? Why does understanding context matter?

Developing a rich, detailed understanding of the political environment in which a problem needs to be addressed can be a never-ending research project, not only because of the depth of scholarship that can be brought to bear, but also because political environments are often unstable and rapidly-changing. Few research projects have the luxury of large budgets and long time horizons in which to fully comprehend the environments that they seek to influence. Instead, practical rapid assessment tools can be valuable and improve the effectiveness of research input and actions.

One such tool for rapidly assessing political context was published in 2014 as part of the Rapid Outcome Mapping Approach: A Guide to Policy Engagement and Influence by John Young and colleagues and a modified version is reproduced here.