We are currently updating the way blog posts are indexed and you can follow progress on the improvements page.
The terms used for indexing blog posts are listed and defined on this page. Each blog post is categorised according to the main topic/s covered and also by the type/s of resource it provides. Additional topics covered are included as tags. The information on this page describes:
- main topics (categories)
- topics (tags)
- resource types (categories)
- searching
- definitions
- list of terms, with their definitions.
These are the key areas relevant to research integration and implementation when addressing complex societal and environmental problems:
- change
- communication
- context
- decision support
- diversity
- education
- evaluation
- institutionalisation
- integration
- participation
- research implementation
- stakeholders
- systems
- unknowns.
Essentially complex real-world problems are systems problems, and understanding and addressing them is context-dependent. Communication is essential at all levels of research. Participation by a wide range of disciplines and stakeholders is a key ingredient and should ensure that as much diversity as possible is included in the research. More comprehensive understanding of complex problems requires integration of diverse perspectives and understandings and, ideally, should also integrate unknowns. Bringing about effective change requires research implementation and decision support. Ignoring unknowns can lead to adverse unintended consequences and nasty surprises. Research integration and implementation requires evaluation to assess effectiveness, education to develop expertise in research integration and implementation, and institutionalisation to ensure that the expertise is recognised and rewarded.
Additional relevant terms that embellish these main topics are used as ‘tags’ on the blog posts. For example, ‘collaboration’ is a tag for participation; ‘modelling,’ as relevant, is a tag for systems, participation, decision support, integration and/or unknowns; and ‘promotion and/or tenure’ is a tag for institutionalisation.
There are many specific approaches, associated with professional associations and networks, for tackling complex real-world problems and these are also provided as tags. They include interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, systems thinking, action research and implementation science. Research or education using a specific approach involves at least some of the main topics listed above (eg participation or decision support). Where authors have associated their blog posts with a specific approach, the blog posts are tagged with the name of the approach. The name is then followed by either ‘(general relevance)’ when the topic of the blog post is more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation or ‘(specific)’ when the topic does not have broader relevance to research integration and implementation.
There are several hundred tags, which are listed below (currently incomplete). In addition, each blog post is tagged with the name of each author and with any partner. Authors and partners are not included in the index below; lists of authors and partners are available.
These describe what blog posts present:
- cases
- competencies
- concepts
- frameworks
- methods
- processes
- state-of-the-blog
- synthesis blog posts
- theories
- toolkits.
Examples are provided as part of the definition for most resource types to help explain how those terms are used.
Clicking on individual “categories” or “tags” in a blog post allows all other blog posts indexed using the same term to be found. Terms are only used for indexing blog posts if the blog post has something substantial to say about that topic. If a blog post simply mentions a topic, it is not indexed using that term. Using the blog’s search function will find all posts that mention a term.
The definitions provided are not dictionary or general-purpose definitions, but instead focus on the relevance of the terms for research integration and implementation. The definitions are necessarily brief; elaborations of the terms can be found in the blog posts themselves.
List of terms, with their definitions
These blog posts address topics that are relevant both to ‘action research’ and other research and education addressing complex societal and environmental problems. Action research is a philosophy and a family of methodologies that pursue change (action) and research outcomes at the same time.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'action research (general relevance)'.
These blog posts address topics that are relevant only to ‘action research’ and not other research and education addressing complex societal and environmental problems. Action research is a philosophy and a family of methodologies that pursue change (action) and research outcomes at the same time.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'action research (specific)'.
Adaptation is both an adjustment to actual or expected change and the adjustments required to achieve change, with some blog posts focusing more on one than the other. The adjustments aim to moderate or avoid harm and to exploit beneficial opportunities and may require on-going flexibility where there is on-going change.
Activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions in a particular way.
Building computer simulations of the actions and interactions through prescribed rules of individuals and/or collective entities (such as organisations or groups), known as agents.
A range of tools to assist decision making when problems are not well defined or when available information is insufficient for reliable quantitative analysis. The tools are based on conceptual distinctions and logical reasoning.
Sherry Arnstein’s description of 8 levels of public participation in government decision making.
Inclinations or prejudices for or against ideas, beliefs, people and groups in ways that are closed-minded and/or unfair. See also cognitive biases.
Ideas, artefacts, publications and other ‘objects’ that are used in collaborations to aid common understanding, integration and/or action. They are concrete enough for everyone to recognise and abstract enough to accommodate a range of researcher and/or stakeholder perspectives.
Complex problems and other open systems have no natural boundaries. Everything relevant cannot therefore be understood or acted on, so that artificial but necessary limits to what will be dealt with must be established.
Work undertaken by individuals or organisations to establish better communication, understanding and joint action among disciplines and stakeholder groups involved in a research environment.
Description:
Examples of how particular methods, concepts or other aspects of research integration and implementation were used to address complex societal or environmental problems. Cases can also describe challenges, unintended consequences or lessons learnt in using methods or concepts in particular circumstances.
Examples:
- Cristina Zurbriggen’s blog post Creating a pragmatic complexity culture / La creación de una cultura pragmática de la complejidad illustrates the application of the concept “pragmatic complexity culture” in soil protection regimes in Uruguay.
- Katrin Prager’s blog post A co-creation challenge: Aligning research and policy processes describes the challenges of aligning research and policy timelines and processes in a project with the Sachsen-Anhalt Ministry for Agriculture in Germany.
Various aspects of altering society and/or the environment, which may range from minor to transformational and which include, but do not necessarily lead to, improvement. Considerations include modifying policy and/or practice in government, business or civil society.
An approach to learning where learners work together to build their knowledge. May be used to mean co-creation, co-design, co-innovation or co-production.
Stakeholders are involved in the research process, ranging from contributing ideas to being full partners in undertaking the research. May be used to mean co-construction, co-design, co-innovation or co-production.
Stakeholders are involved in designing the research and in the implementation of the results to ensure that it meets their needs. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-innovation or co-production.
Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that adversely affect decisions and judgments. They are usually unconscious and often result from the brain’s attempts to simplify information processing through mental shortcuts (heuristics).
Stakeholders are involved in collaborative invention and possibly commercialisation of new products, processes or solutions. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-design or co-production.
Individuals or groups working together to undertake research.
The shared wisdom and knowledge that grows out of a group’s collective efforts, that is more than an individual can produce and that leads to consensus decisions.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'collective intelligence'.
Groups of people with similar expertise in research integration and/or implementation who can effectively assess each other’s research grant applications and publications. This is analogous to the way traditional disciplines operate.
Sharing information, by various means, especially to increase understanding between people or groups.
Description:
Knowledge, skills, abilities and attributes required to undertake some or all of research integration and implementation.
Please note that this blog as a whole aims to build expertise in research integration and implementation by sharing methods, concepts, frameworks etc, as well as discussion of competencies.
Example:
- A series of three blog posts by the Translational Ecology Group describe the competencies required to be a translational ecologist divided into 1) knowledge, 2) skills and 3) dispositional attributes.
Can be approached from multiple, sometimes competing, perspectives; are hard to delimit; involve critical unresolved unknowns; and have multiple possible solutions, each of which is only partial and temporary and limited by real-world constraints.
Please note that this blog as a whole is about addressing complex problems. Blog posts are only tagged with ‘complex problems’ when they describe complex problems.
Complex systems are composed of many components which may interact with each other in various ways and which are therefore difficult to model. Specific properties include non-linearity, emergence, adaptation and feedback loops.
Description:
Useful ideas for understanding or undertaking various aspects of research integration and implementation.
Example:
- Britt Holbrook’s blog post Interdisciplinarity and evil: understanding incommensurability describes the idea of incommensurability.
Representing the system of interest in a way that conveys its fundamental details and basic functions for the purposes of understanding and communication.
The tendency to search for, interpret, prefer and recall information in a way that is consistent with or strengthens existing beliefs or hypotheses. This is usually unconscious and is one type of cognitive bias.
Obtaining stakeholder input or feedback on proposed or active research.
The circumstances in which aspects of research integration and implementation occur. These can include historical, political, cultural and other circumstances, as well as the structure and culture of the research and/or stakeholder organisations involved.
Expertise required to make a substantive contribution to a field, divided into knowing-that and knowing-how.
Stakeholders are involved in joint processes of undertaking research to develop new or revised public policies and services. May be used to mean co-construction, co-creation, co-innovation or co-design.
Forming something new and valuable, including ideas, theories, inventions, literature and art.
Accounting for and reducing biases, particularly in judgments and decision-making.
The circumstances under which a decision is made and which influence the decision.
Selecting a course of action among several alternate possibilities.
Use of analytical tools, which may be computerized, to assist individuals and groups in decision making. Decision support includes various kinds of modelling and mapping.
The Society for Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty provides the following definition “Deep uncertainty exists when parties to a decision do not know, or cannot agree on, the system model that relates action to consequences, the probability distributions to place over the inputs to these models, which consequences to consider and their relative importance. Deep uncertainty often involves decisions that are made over time in dynamic interaction with the system.”
Individual differences among researchers and stakeholders that affect the way complex problems are understood and acted on. These include differences in mental models, epistemologies, interests and values.
The process of facilitating learning about aspects of research integration and implementation in formal, usually university, settings.
New properties or behaviours displayed by an entity that its parts do not have.
A way of conducting research or some other form of participatory process that gives stakeholders (especially those who are marginalized or otherwise in relatively powerless positions) greater control over the process.
Approaches a problem searching for its causes and cures within the system boundary (see System Dynamics glossary).
Examination of impacts of aspects of research integration and implementation, examining original objectives, what was accomplished and how it was accomplished.
A feedback loop is a process in which an output of a system is circled back and used as one or more inputs, through direct or indirect causal links. Feedback loops can be reinforcing (positive) or balancing (negative).
Giving information about reactions to, for example, a product, actions, processes, or performance of a task, to be used as a basis for improvement by the recipient.
Description:
Structured ideas, information or principles that provide a systematic way of undertaking or evaluating various aspects of research integration or implementation.
Example:
- Catherine Hobb’s blog post Adaptive social learning for systemic leadership provides a five-step learning pathway with operational principles, facets of systemic leadership and useful resources.
Researcher (usually) who provides decision makers, including policy makers, with the full range of research findings and interpretations and does so in an impartial way that does not favour any particular decision or outcome.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'honest broker'.
The Public Participation Spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). It defines the public’s role in any community engagement program.
Embedding research integration and implementation into the academic mainstream, eg by establishing departments of research integration and implementation, centres of interdisciplinarity, relevant journals and professional associations, funding streams, promotion criteria etc.
Access all blog posts categorised under 'institutionalisation'.
Building frameworks with features of society, including economy, and biosphere. Also known as integrated assessment modelling.
Synthesis of perspectives from different disciplines and stakeholders to develop a more comprehensive understanding of a complex problem and possible ways to act on it.
A scholarly and political endeavour, which can also be thought of as a new discipline. As a scholarly endeavour i2S aims to provide a resources repository that draws on, and contributes to, research tackling complex societal and environmental problems. Such research may be conducted by researchers who have organised into specific approaches (eg transdisciplinarity, action research, systems thinking, implementation science), as well as those who do not identify with these groups. This i2Insights blog and the resources repository on the i2S website are key in this activity. As a political endeavour, i2S aims to support recognition of common cause and collective action across researchers tackling complex societal and environmental problems to help institutionalise the competencies, concepts, frameworks, methods, processes and theories employed in such research.
Please note that this blog as a whole aims to build resources for integration and implementation sciences (i2S).
Access all blog posts tagged with 'integration and implementation sciences (i2S)'.
The ability to understand disciplines, professional practice and community experience without being trained in those disciplines or professions or having lived in those communities.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'interactional expertise'.
Interdisciplinarity is a mode of research and problem solving by teams or individuals that integrates information, methods, tools, concepts, perspectives and/or theories from two or more disciplines. Adding (general relevance) means these blog posts address topics that are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation, not just to interdisciplinarity.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'interdisciplnarity (general relevance)'.
Interdisciplinarity is a mode of research and problem solving by teams or individuals that integrates information, methods, tools, concepts, perspectives and/or theories from two or more disciplines. Adding (specific) means these blog posts address topics that are relevant only to interdisciplinarity and not to research integration and implementation more broadly.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'interdisciplinarity (specific)'.
Academic or scholarly periodicals where concepts, methods, frameworks, processes etc for research integration and implementation are published, often along with cases illustrating their use.
Being in charge of, guiding, encouraging, organising and/or directing other individuals, teams or organisations, especially in achieving research integration and implementation. Blog posts cover leadership competencies, leadership impacts and strengthening leadership.
Explicit expectations and ground rules for meetings, aiming to make them run better. Meetings involve two or more people, occur in many environments and serve multiple purposes, often involving sharing information and/or joint decision making.
Description:
Established ways of tackling specific aspects of research integration or implementation.
Example:
- Joseph Guillaume’s blog post Blackboxing unknown unknowns through vulnerability analysis describes the method of vulnerability analysis (and an application of the method for dealing with unknown unknowns).
Combining quantitative and qualitative data, methods and/or paradigms in a single study or series of studies on the same problem.
Building useful representations of reality, particularly of key features and relationships (and even though models may be complex they are simpler than reality). Models can be informal (mental models) or formal (computational models). Key roles of modelling are to provide a) representations and understanding of systems, including complex systems, b) tools for understanding and managing unknowns, c) tools for decision support, d) participatory processes that expose diversity (eg differences in mental models) and e) tools for integration (eg of different knowledge and perspectives).
Relationships where changes in inputs do not lead to proportional changes in outcomes. Outcomes may be chaotic, unpredictable, or counterintuitive.
A general term for a range of interactions both among researchers with different expertise and between researchers and stakeholders. Participation includes: co-creation, collaboration, co-production, mutual learning and productive disagreement.
Engaging the knowledge of stakeholders, including tacit knowledge, in building models.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'participatory modelling'.
How a decision is limited by past decisions, rather than simply by current conditions.
Patterns are regularities, where the elements repeat in predictable ways. Examples are standard ways of approaching a problem, standard sub-processes in modelling, standard layouts for organising research publications (eg introduction, methods, results, discussion). Patterns can be explicit or tacit.
The natural and/or human-made surroundings in which research and education occur, including landscapes, structures such open offices, spaces that facilitate interaction, proximity to other buildings, lighting, and air circulation.
Possession of control, authority or influence over others and how it impacts the conduct and communication of research, as well as research implementation and change.
Differential ability to exert control, authority or influence over others, especially in deciding what research will be conducted and how.
Problems are defined differently by different disciplinary experts and stakeholders. Addressing any problem requires taking these different understandings of the problem into account in developing an agreed (or at least acceptable) statement of the problem, which will then determine how it is tackled. Coming to a shared problem framing will not always be possible, especially for complex problems.
Description:
Series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve particular ends. Processes are less well established than methods.
Example:
- Anthony Boxshall’s blog post Research impact in government – three crucial elements you will need for success describes three processes to follow to improve research uptake in government policy.
The process of reflecting on how the research or specific aspects of the research (eg dialogue process, data collection, interpretation) are conducted, especially the influence of the researchers themselves (such as their knowledge, biases, perceptions, motivations etc).
Close long-term professional connections among people and/or groups that involve building trust and respect and free exchange of ideas. They are a prelude to and underpin effectively working together.
Change that can be attributed to research. This includes making a difference in policy or practice, or in skills, attitudes, relationships or thinking. Research implementation is the process, research impact is the outcome, although impact may not be able to be unequivocally linked to specific implementation activities.
A general term for various ways of using research to support policy and/or practice change in government, business and/or civil society. Research implementation includes: implementation science, knowledge brokering and knowledge translation. Research implementation is a process, change (research impact) is the desired outcome, although it may not be achieved.
Access all blog posts categorised under 'research implementation'.
A modified version of the Public Participation Spectrum of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), which lays out different roles for stakeholders in research.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'research-modified IAP2 spectrum'.
Generally, resilience is the ability to bounce-back after adversity. For social-ecological systems it is the capacity to absorb or withstand perturbations and other stressors while maintaining their essential structure and functions. Resilience describes the degree to which a system is capable of self-organization, learning and adaptation.
Accepted principles or instructions about way things are or should be done, including norms, practices, taboos, regulations, legislation, treaties and ordinances.
The unit of analysis, usually geographical region for spatial scale, time period for temporal scale and institutional level for organisational scale.
Moving from a single successful project or pilot study to a community- or population- wide implementation, usually of an innovative evidence-based practice.
The development of insights or research ideas by chance in a beneficial way.
Resisting the pressures of modern academia to make time for, for example: long-term, high-quality stakeholder engagement; exploring ideas with colleagues; maintaining diverse networks; and deep reflection.
The process of gaining insight through iterative reflection that occurs when two or more people share ideas, experiences and other forms of knowledge and perception.
May also be referred to as mutual learning.
Those affected by the problem under investigation and those in a position to do something about the problem. Stakeholders include community members, workers, policy makers, professionals, and business leaders.
Description:
Reviews of progress on the i2Insights blog (generally annual). Occasionally some other blog-related topic.
Access all blog posts categorised under 'state-of-the-blog'.
A social and cultural activity for sharing and interpreting knowledge and experiences, and for education.
Result from unexpected events and are particularly relevant to uncovering unknown unknowns. Are brief mental and physiological states than can be neutral, positive or negative.
Description:
Review of common themes among two or more blog posts.
Access all blog posts categorised under 'synthesis blog posts'.
Focuses on circular, interlocking and sometimes time delayed relationships, with feedback as the central concept. Involves defining problems dynamically and includes mapping (causal loop diagrams) and modelling stages.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'system dynamics approach'.
Examination of interrelationships and interconnections, and the resulting challenges of setting boundaries (around the problem, stakeholders involved etc), managing multiple perspectives and seeing problems as a whole.
Tacit knowledge or unknown knowns is knowledge that individuals, groups and organisations are largely unaware that they have.
Description:
Generalised explanations of how aspects of research integration and implementation work. They guide the development of further understanding. Theories are more firmly grounded in philosophy, other humanities, social sciences or sciences than frameworks.
Example:
- Deana Pennington’s blog post Knowledge synthesis and external representations builds on three theories addressing the role of externalizations in enabling people to grapple with understanding complex concepts that may not be familiar to them.
A change management method to improve unproductive patterns of behaviour.
Requiring additional time (compared to traditional research) in order to successfully complete various elements of research integration and implementation, such as stakeholder participation.
Thresholds that, when exceeded, lead to large irreversible changes in systems.
Description:
Collections of resources for undertaking various aspects of research integration and implementation. They are often, but not always, collections of methods and processes.
Example:
- Matthias Bergmann’s blog post Methods for integration in transdisciplinary research describes 43 methods in seven classes that are useful for research integration.
The term transdisciplinarity is used in multiple ways; in these blog posts it is mostly used for building new integrative frameworks and research strategies that transcend disciplinary boundaries and/or involving stakeholders in research and research implementation. Adding (general relevance) means these blog posts address topics that are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation, not just to transdisciplinarity.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'transdisciplinarity (general relevance)'.
The term ‘transdisciplinarity’ is used in multiple ways; in these blog posts it is mostly used for building new integrative frameworks and research strategies that transcend disciplinary boundaries and/or involving stakeholders in research and research implementation. Adding (specific) means these blog posts address topics that are relevant only to transdisciplinarity and not to research integration and implementation more broadly.
Access all blog posts tagged with 'transdisciplinarity (specific)'.
Translational ecology is a boundary-spanning environmental science that leads to actionable research focused on maintaining or enhancing the resilience of social-environmental systems. Most considerations are more broadly relevant to research integration and implementation.
Aspects of complex problems about which knowledge is missing or incomplete. Unknowns include: known unknowns, unknown knowns (tacit knowledge) , unknown unknowns (deep uncertainty), uncertainty, risk and ignorance.
What we do not know we do not know. Can occur at individual though to societal levels. Result either from false convictions or unknowns that one is not aware of (see Smithson blog post). Discovering an unknown unknown generally involves surprise. May be used to mean deep uncertainty.
Ethical principles that determine how people decide what is right and wrong and how they select and evaluate actions and events. Some blog posts also include considerations that are broader than ethics, such as regard, importance, worth and usefulness.
A way of examining decision making or co-creation by exploring interactions among values, rules and knowledge.