Developing a ‘capabilities approach’ for measuring social impact

November 27, 2018December 30, 2019 Community Member Frameworks, Research implementation Author - Daniel Hicks, Capabilities approach, Ethics, Funding, Institutional reward structures, Metrics, Social impact

By Daniel J. Hicks

Why do familiar metrics of impact often seem “thin” or to miss the point of research designed to address real-world problems? Is there a better way to measure the social impact of research?

In a recent paper (Hicks et al., 2018), my coauthors and I identified a key limitation with current metrics and started to look at how concepts from philosophy — specifically, ethics — can help us explain the goals of our research, and potentially lead to better metrics.

What’s the problem?

To understand the limitations of current metrics for measuring the social impact of research, it is useful to understand two distinctions, between resources and goals and between inward-facing and outward-facing goals for research. Continue reading →

Negotiations and ‘normative’ or ‘ethical’ power

June 26, 2018December 31, 2019 Community Member Concepts, Participation Author - Lena Partzsch, Collaboration, Ethics, Governance, Interests, Mutual learning, Negotiation, Policymaking, Power, Rules

By Lena Partzsch

What can we learn from international relations about how ‘normative’ or ‘ethical’ power can be used in successful negotiations, for example, for pathways to sustainability? Here I build on Ian Manners’ (2002) concept of “Normative Power Europe”. He argues that the European Union’s specific history “pre‐disposes it to act in a normative way” (Manners 2002: 242) based on norms such as democracy, rule of law, social justice and respect for human rights. I explore the broader ramifications of the normative power concept for empirical studies and for practical negotiation and collaboration more generally.

First, the concept of normative power implies that the spread of particular norms is perceived as a principal policy goal, whether that relates to foreign policy, environmental policy or other kinds of policy. Continue reading →

A guide for interdisciplinary researchers: Adding axiology alongside ontology and epistemology

May 22, 2018January 14, 2020 Community Member Diversity, Theories Author - Peter Deane, Axiology, Epistemology, Ethics, Interdisciplinarity (general relevance), Ontology, Philosophy of science, Research design, Values

By Peter Deane

Can philosophical insights be useful for interdisciplinary researchers in extending their thinking about the role of values and knowledge in research? More broadly, can a model or heuristic simplify some of the complexity in understanding how research works?

It’s common for interdisciplinary researchers to consider ontology and epistemology, two major arms of philosophical inquiry into human understanding, but axiology – a third major arm – is oft overlooked.

I start by describing axiology, then detail work by Michael Patterson and Daniel Williams (1998) who place axiology alongside ontology and epistemology. The outcome herein is to cautiously eject and then present a part of their work as a heuristic that may help interdisciplinary researchers to extend understanding on philosophical commitments that underlie research. Continue reading →

Interdisciplinarity and evil – Understanding incommensurability

March 27, 2018January 14, 2020 Community Member Communication, Concepts, Diversity Author - J Britt Holbrook, Ethics, Incommensurability, Interdisciplinarity (general relevance), Productive disagreement, Trust

By J. Britt Holbrook

Incommensurability is a recognized problem in interdisciplinary research. What is it? How can we understand it? And what can we do about it?

What is it?

Incommensurability is best illustrated by a real example. I once co-taught a class with a colleague from another discipline. Her discipline depends on empirical analysis of data sets, literally on counting things. I, on the other hand, am a philosopher. We don’t count. One day she said to our students, “If you don’t have an empirical element in what you’re doing, it’s not research.” I watched the students start nodding, paused for half a beat, and volunteered, “So, I’ve never done any research in my entire career.” “That’s right!” she replied, immediately, yet hesitating somewhere between a discovery and a joke. Continue reading →

Storytelling ethnography as a way of doing transdisciplinary research

November 29, 2016January 10, 2020 Community Member Integration, Participation, Processes Advocacy, Author - Jane Palmer, Ethics, Narrative analysis, Power, Rapid ethnographic assessment methods, Reflexivity, Transdisciplinarity (general relevance)

By Jane Palmer

Storytelling ethnography is a valuable tool if your research traverses several disciplines and aims for insights that transcend all of them. Stories not only integrate knowledge from diverse disciplines, but can also “change the way people act, the way they use available knowledge” (Griffiths 2007).

The special qualities of transdisciplinarity are:

its potential for integrative inquiry and emergent solutions,
its engagement with community and other non-academic knowledges, and
the breadth of its outcomes for researchers, participants and the wider community.

These are also qualities of what I call storytelling ethnography. Continue reading →

What makes a translational ecologist? Part 3: Dispositional attributes

July 4, 2016December 30, 2019 Community Member Competencies, Research implementation Author - Translational Ecology Group, Ethics, Higher education, Negotiation, Translational ecology, Values

By the Translational Ecology Group

This is the third and final blog post considering competencies to make ecologists more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change (see the right sidebar for links to all four related blog posts on translational ecology). In other words these are the competencies underpinning a new discipline of translational ecology.

The two previous blog posts examined the knowledge and skills required in three major areas:

Socio-ecological systems
Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

This blog post uses the same three areas to examine the dispositional attributes required.

What are dispositional attributes?

Each person’s internal cognitive and moral qualities are collectively known as dispositions. Continue reading →

Integration and Implementation Insights

Research resources for understanding and acting on complex real-world problems

Ethics

Negotiations and ‘normative’ or ‘ethical’ power

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A guide for interdisciplinary researchers: Adding axiology alongside ontology and epistemology

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Interdisciplinarity and evil – Understanding incommensurability

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Storytelling ethnography as a way of doing transdisciplinary research

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What makes a translational ecologist? Part 3: Dispositional attributes

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