Boundary spanning

Boundaries as opportunities for learning

By Roger Duck and Jane Searles.

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1. Roger Duck (biography)
2. Jane Searles (biography)

Think of a time when you noticed how different ‘they’ are from ‘us’. In that moment, did the relationship become more interesting and alive? Or did it flatten into what looked like a boundary – a barrier to be overcome or a connection to be engineered?

This i2Insights contribution is intended to stimulate your imagination by giving examples from practice of relationships between people and teams being treated as opportunities for learning, rather than boundaries.

Most readers of i2Insights work in research. We believe there is much of relevance here for any context in which people are working together, including research teams.

The context

We expand here on the idea that ‘a system boundary is simultaneously a process of drawing a distinction and identifying an active relationship of mutual learning’ (Duck and Searles 2021).

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Boundary spanning: A leadership perspective

By Gemma Jiang, Jenny Grabmeier, Diane Boghrat and Susan Simkins.

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1. Gemma Jiang (biography)
2. Jenny Grabmeier (biography)
3. Diane Boghrat (biography)
4. Susan Simkins (biography)

What does boundary spanning in cross-disciplinary science teams entail, and how does it relate to leadership?

At its core, boundary spanning is about bridging differences. These differences usually fall into two categories:

  1. Interdisciplinary differences, which involve varying perspectives across different disciplines, such as vocabulary, methods, epistemologies, and cultures.
  2. Transdisciplinary differences, which involve perspectives from science, society, policy, and practice that transcend institutional and sectoral boundaries.

The expertise required to bridge these differences is often referred to as “integration expertise” (Hoffman et al., 2024) or as one of us (Simkins) refers to it “interdisciplinary translation.” For simplicity, we’ll refer to all these forms of expertise as “boundary spanning,” and those who play these roles as “boundary spanners.”

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A framework for transdisciplinary boundary work

By Lisa Andrews, Stefania Munaretto, Heleen Mees and Peter Driessen.

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1. Lisa Andrews (biography)
2. Stefania Munaretto (biography)
3. Heleen Mees (biography)
4. Peter Driessen (biography)

What are the challenges in engaging different actors and integrating knowledge across disciplines? What does it mean to do this work ‘well’? What brings about successful engagement, boundary crossing and knowledge integration to enable impact? More specifically, how can transdisciplinary research project actors collaborate to produce outputs and foster societal impact?

The following framework identifies 12 boundary work activities to support transdisciplinary research project actors to collaborate, co-create and integrate knowledge that leads to societal impact across project phases. Here, impact is defined as the desired long-term societal, economic and/or environmental changes agreed upon by the involved transdisciplinary actors based on the problem and scientific knowledge gaps they aim to address, with impact resulting from a chain of events to which the transdisciplinary project has entirely or in part contributed.

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Why is it so hard to agree on definitions of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity?

By Gabriele Bammer

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Gabriele Bammer (biography)

As more and more researchers, educators, universities and research organisations, funders, and policy makers become interested in interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, the demand for clear unequivocal definitions of these terms grows. Why is agreeing on such definitions so hard? And what’s the way forward?

The late Julie Thompson Klein’s work tracking typologies of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity over time (Klein, 2017) is revealing and provides the basis for this i2Insights contribution.

Klein pointed out that in the latter half of the twentieth century, the classification of the Western intellectual tradition “into specialized domains within a larger system of disciplinarity” was “supplemented and challenged” by an increasing number of activities that involved disciplinary interactions.

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Not just in our heads: Embodied and creative practices for creating connection

By Corinne Lamain and Jillian Student

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1. Corinne Lamain (biography)
2. Jillian Student (biography)

How can embodied and creative practices, such as dance and poetry, be used to bridge different forms of knowledge?

Transdisciplinarity requires crossing many boundaries, including knowledge fields, perspectives, languages, personalities, and geographic areas. This is often somewhat uncomfortable. Arts-based and embodied approaches can support creative thinking, perspective-taking and communication. For some, these art-based methods feel more natural than for others, but we suggest that the willingness to leave our comfort zone (‘embracing the discomfort’) opens up space for shared vulnerability that is much needed for integrating perspectives. Moreover, doing these practices under time pressure helps remove the tendency to self-criticise and strive for perfection in artistic expression. To be fair, creative practices are not everyone’s style. It is important to note that the effort is not about co-creating beautiful artwork, but rather to facilitate alternative means of expression.

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Leadership and the hidden politics of co-produced research

By Catherine Durose, Beth Perry, Liz Richardson and Rikki Dean

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1. Catherine Durose (biography)
2. Beth Perry (biography)
3. Liz Richardson (biography)
4. Rikki Dean (biography)

What are the hidden politics of seeking to co-produce research with stakeholders? What kinds of leadership are common in co-produced research? What trade-offs does each kind of leadership make in addressing issues such as being directive, inclusive, innovative, accountable, open to what emerges and sharing power?

The hidden politics of co-production in research

The hidden politics of co-production in research involves tensions and debates about:

1. The purposes of scientific work.
Co-production brings together people, not only with different expertise, but also with different purposes for being involved, which can range from achieving more effective policy and practice outcomes to delivering social justice and empowering those experiencing disadvantage.

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Communicating across organizational boundaries

By Adrian Wolfberg

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Adrian Wolfberg (biography)

What do researchers, stakeholders and end-users need to know about organizational boundaries so that they can communicate effectively when collaborating to build and achieve common goals? What does it mean to communicate effectively? How is shared meaning acquired? Why is it so difficult?

Organizational boundaries are socially constructed distinctions created intentionally to foster specific patterns of behavior by one set of individuals that are different from other sets of individuals. They have a double-edged value: positive and negative. On the positive side, creating boundaries potentially allows us to focus, and thereby deepen and specialize knowledge and activity. The negative side is control, where management and/or culture inflexibility thwarts the agility needed for crossing boundaries.

Boundaries come in many forms. Here I focus on structural and conceptual boundaries, reviewing four types of each as summarized in the figure below. I focus particularly on the implications of these boundaries for language and communication.

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Researcher activism: A voice of experience

By Dorothy Broom

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Dorothy Broom (biography)

In reflecting on my researcher-activist role in women’s health, I’ve come up with six tips that may provide guidance to those embarking on such a role. The lessons I draw can also be relevant in other fields of endeavour, in population health, environmental research and beyond.

Tip 1: Build your legitimacy with those you are aiming to influence and those you are advocating for

My academic research in the 1980s and 90s on the politics of women’s health was distinct from my feminist political activism. Prompted by intellectual curiosity, I developed a research profile that fortuitously prepared me to take on an advocacy role at a time of major policy foment.

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Theoretical framework for open team science / オープンチームサイエンスという考え方

By Yasuhisa Kondo

A Japanese version of this post is available

author yasuhisa kondo
Yasuhisa Kondo (biography)

What is open team science? What challenges does it deal with and how?

What is open team science?

In our experience, projects are commonly disrupted by socio-psychological boundaries, particularly at the initial phase of team building. Such boundaries are often generated by asymmetric information, knowledge, wisdom (wise use of knowledge; Bellingen et al., 2004), values, socio-economic status, and power among actors.

We have developed a theoretical framework that considers open science as an open scientific knowledge production system, which can be interlinked with transdisciplinarity as a driver of boundary spanning to develop a new research paradigm. We call this open team science.

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Three tasks for transdisciplinary bridge builders

By Roderick J. Lawrence

roderick-lawrence
Roderick J. Lawrence (biography)

Human groups and societies have built many kinds of bridges for centuries. Since the 19th century, engineers have designed complex physical structures that were intended to serve one or more purposes in precise situations. In essence, the construction of a bridge is meant to join two places together. What may appear as a mundane functional structure is built only after numerous decisions have been made about its appearance, cost, functions, location and structure. Will a bridge serve only as a link and passage, or will it serve other functions?

In discussing three things the transdisciplinary research community can do to build bridges, I use “building bridges” as a metaphor. I discuss a bridge as a human-made artefact that is attributed meaningful form. It is created intentionally for one or more purposes.

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Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

By Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith and Dana Cordell

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1. Dena Fam (biography)
2. Tanzi Smith (biography)
3. Dana Cordell (biography)

What skills and dispositions are required by researchers and practitioners in transdisciplinary research and practice in crossing boundaries, sectors and paradigms?

The insights here come from interviews with 14 internationally recognized transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners, chosen from a diverse range of research and practice-based perspectives.

Here we focus on:

1) skills for specific tasks such as facilitation of a meeting, crafting a well-written report, and communicating effectively across disciplines; and,

2) dispositions, attitudes, orientations and temperaments of an effective researcher/practitioner, i.e., as a way of being.

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Building a better bridge: The role of research mediators

By Jessica Shaw

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Jessica Shaw (biography) (Photograph by Chris Soldt)

What, and who, are research mediators? And are they the key to linking research with policy and practice?

There has long existed a gap, perhaps a chasm, between the worlds of research and of policy and practice. All too often, policymakers and practitioners do not use research evidence when making key decisions, while researchers design entire programs of research without a complete understanding of the needs of those on the ground doing the work. Because of this divide, we’re left wondering—how do we get individuals to use the most relevant research findings when making personal healthcare decisions? how do we get school officials to choose evidence-based curriculum? how do we get legislators to develop scientifically-sound policies?

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