State-of-the-blog

By Gabriele Bammer

In November the blog had its fifth birthday. It was an occasion to reflect on how far we have come and where we want to head. Here we describe our new i2Insights Ambassadors program to acknowledge those who champion the blog and to highlight ways supporters can help the blog achieve its aims.

We also share the highlights of 2020 and major improvements made to the blog this year. Finally we showcase 13 blog posts published in 2020 that achieved more than 750 views.

If you are looking for short, thought-provoking reading, there are now well over 300 blog posts to choose from. Rummage through the blog scroll or the list of highlighted posts. Or search the index or use the advanced search to find topics that may interest you.

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By Gabriele Bammer

This is the fourth annual “state of the blog” review.

For the past four years the blog has worked well, achieving significant growth. In 2020 we’re planning improvements, mainly to make specific resources easier to find and access. In 2019 there were a number of firsts, including surpassing 250 blog posts and 300 authors. Check out the nine blog posts published in 2019 that achieved more than 750 views. And if you are looking for something thought-provoking to read over, what for many, will be a holiday break, see below for a selection of gems.

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By Gabriele Bammer

This is the third annual “state of the blog” review.

As the blog moves into its 4th year, how well is it achieving its goals? Is it succeeding in sharing concepts and methods across the multiple groups addressing complex real-world problems – groups including inter- and trans- disciplinarians, systems thinkers, action researchers and implementation scientists, as well as the myriad researchers working on complex environmental, health and other societal problems, who do not necessarily identify with these networks? Is it providing a forum to connect these disparate groups and individuals? Is it helping to build an international research community to improve how complex real-world problems are tackled?

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By Gabriele Bammer

This is the second annual “state of the blog” review.

Why are you reading this? That sounds like an aggressive question, but it’s not meant to be. It’s a prelude to asking: is the blog serving a useful purpose for you? If so, what is it doing right? If not, what could it do better?

The blog was established to provide easier access to concepts and methods for dealing with complex problems in any field (environment, public health, welfare, education, security and more) and to connect a diverse and fragmented community – primarily of researchers.

November 2017 marked the blog’s second anniversary and this 169^th blog post reviews how we are tracking, as well as asking for your input.

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By Gabriele Bammer

This is the first annual “state of the blog” review.

This is a blog for researchers who:

• want better concepts and methods for understanding and acting on complex real-world problems – problems like refugee crises, global climate change, and inequality.
• are intrigued by the messiness of how components of a problem interact, how context can be all-important and how power can stymie or facilitate action.
• understand that complex problems do not have perfect solutions; instead that “best possible” or “least worst” solutions are more realistic aims.
• enjoy wrangling with unknowns to better manage, or even head-off, unintended adverse consequences and unpleasant surprises.
• are keen to look across the boundaries of their own expertise to see what concepts and methods are on offer from those with different academic backgrounds grappling with other kinds of problems.
• want to join forces to build a community which freely shares concepts and methods for dealing with complex problems, so that these become a stronger part of the mainstream of academic research and education.

November saw this blog’s first anniversary and this 100th blog post reviews what we are aiming for and how we are tracking.

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By Gabriele Bammer

The aim of this site is to host a global conversation about… well one of the challenges is that we don’t yet have an agreed name for our topic.

This is a conversation for you if your research does some of the following:

• Gets people from different disciplines working together
• Builds models of complex social and environmental problems
• Helps policy makers use research evidence
• Figures out ways to manage value conflicts
• Finds ways to identify unknown unknowns
• Maps interconnections between problem elements
• Works with business to build better products
• Involves community groups in defining the problem
• Worries about adverse unintended consequences
• Realises that context matters.

I think about these practices as integration and implementation sciences. You might call them systems thinking, action research, interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, implementation science, post-normal science, mode 2 research, project management, complex systems science or a host of other terms.

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