Language – Spanish – Integration and Implementation Insights

Listening-based dialogue: Circle of dialogue wisdom / Diálogo basado en la escucha: Círculos de diálogo entre saberes

August 9, 2022May 18, 2021

By Adriana Moreno Cely, Darío Cuajera Nahui, César Gabriel Escobar Vásquez, Tom Vanwing and Nelson Tapia Ponce

authors_adriana-moreno-cely_dario-uajera-nahui_cesar-escobar-vasquez_tom-vanwing_nelson-tapia-ponce — 1. Adriana Moreno Cely; 2. Darío Cuajera Nahui; 3. César Gabriel Escobar Vásquez; 4. Tom Vanwing; 5. Nelson Tapia Ponce (biographies)

A Spanish version of this post is available.

How can marginalised knowledge systems really make themselves heard in collaborative research? What’s needed for research decolonisation to properly recognise Indigenous and local knowledge? How can power imbalances be bridged to ensure that everyone has an equal voice?

We describe the “circle of dialogue wisdom” as a methodological framework to reconceptualise participation, empowerment and collaboration. The framework has 6 phases, which should be seen as spiral and iterative rather than linear.

The six phases, shown in the figure below are:

1. Knowing each other
2. Concerting rules for participation
3. Creating safe spaces
4. Building affection
5. Opening spaces for co-creating solutions
6. Taking solutions to practice (Moreno-Cely, et al., 2021).

Decentering academia through critical unlearning in transdisciplinary knowledge production / Descentralizando la academia a través del des- aprendizaje crítico en la producción de conocimiento transdiciplinario

August 11, 2023February 4, 2020

By Gabriela Alonso-Yanez, Lily House-Peters and Martin Garcia Cartagena

A Spanish version of this post is available

authors_gabriela-alonso-yanez_lily-house-peters_martin-garcia-cartagena — 1. Gabriela Alonso-Yanez (biography)
2. Lily House-Peters (biography)
3. Martin Garcia Cartagena (biography)

How can academic researchers working in transdisciplinary teams establish genuine collaborations with people who do not work in academia? How can they overcome the limitations of their discipline-based training, especially assigning value and hierarchy to specialized forms of knowledge production that privileges certain methodologies and epistemologies over others?

We argue that to truly engage in collaborative work, academics need to participate in deliberate processes of critical unlearning that enable the decentering of academia in the processes and politics of transdisciplinary knowledge production and knowledge translation. What we mean by this is that academics have to be willing to acknowledge, reflect upon, and intentionally discard conventional avenues of designing and conducting research activities in order to be authentically open to other ways of exploring questions about the world in collaboration with diverse groups of social actors.

Conceptual modelling of complex topics: ConML as an example / Modelado conceptual de temas complejos: ConML como ejemplo

August 11, 2021December 11, 2018

By Cesar Gonzalez-Perez

A Spanish version of this post is available

What are conceptual models? How can conceptual modelling effectively represent complex topics and assist communication among people from different backgrounds and disciplines?

This blog post describes ConML, which stands for “Conceptual Modelling Language”. ConML is a specific modelling language that was designed to allow researchers who are not expert in information technologies to create and develop their own conceptual models. It is useful for the humanities, social sciences and experimental sciences.

Institutionalising interdisciplinarity: Lessons from Latin America / Institucionalizar la interdisciplina: Lecciones desde América Latina

July 18, 2023July 17, 2018

By Bianca Vienni Baptista, Federico Vasen and Juan Carlos Villa Soto

authors_bianca-vienni_federico-vasen_juan-carlos-villa-soto — 1. Bianca Vienni Baptista (biography)
2. Federico Vasen (biography)
3. Juan Carlos Villa Soto (biography)

A Spanish version of this post is available

What lessons and challenges about institutionalising interdisciplinarity can be systematized from experiences in Latin American universities?

We analyzed three organizational structures in three different countries to find common challenges and lessons learned that transcend national contexts and the particularities of individual universities. The three case studies are located in:

Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. The Argentinian center (1986 – 2003) was created in a top-down manner without participation of the academic community, and its relative novelty in organizational terms was also a cause of its instability and later closure.
Universidad de la República in Uruguay. The Uruguayan case, started in 2008, shows an innovative experience in organizational terms based on a highly interactive and participatory process.
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The Mexican initiative, which began in 1986, shows a center with a network structure in organizational terms where the focus was redefined over time.

One university’s response to addressing complex real-world problems / Respuesta de una universidad para afrontar problemas complejos del mundo real

December 19, 2022November 28, 2017

By Carlos Mataix, Javier Carrasco, Sara Romero and Marcel Bursztyn

authors_mosaic_carlos-mataix_javier-carrasco_sara-romero_marcel-bursztyn — 1. Carlos Mataix (biography)
2. Javier Carrasco (biography)
3. Sara Romero (biography)
4. Marcel Bursztyn (biography)

A Spanish version of this post is available

How can universities more effectively address complex real-world problems, especially in sustainable development? What’s needed is not only disciplinary expertise, but also an ability to deal with systems problems involving wicked dynamic interrelations and a diversity of stakeholders, with varying levels of power to design and implement solutions. Researchers need to interact with a diversity of actors, inside and outside the academic community and to take into account diverse mental frameworks, languages, cultures and interests.

The Innovation and Technology for Development Centre at the Technical University of Madrid (itdUPM)

A growing number of faculty members at the Technical University of Madrid have sought to address this challenge, leading to the creation in March 2012 of the Innovation and Technology for Development Centre (itdUPM).

A new boundary object to promote researcher engagement with policy makers / Un nuevo objeto frontera para promover la colaboración de los investigadores con los tomadores de decisiones

April 15, 2022October 3, 2017

By María D. López Rodríguez

A Spanish version of this post is available

Can boundary objects be designed to help researchers and decision makers to interact more effectively? How can the socio-political setting – which will affect decisions made – be reflected in the boundary objects?

Here I describe a new context-specific boundary object to promote decision making based on scientific evidence. But first I provide a brief introduction to boundary objects.

What is a ‘boundary object’?

Learning to tackle wicked problems through games / Aprendiendo a hacer frente a problemas perversos a través de los juegos/ Apprendre à affronter les problèmes sournois à travers les jeux

October 9, 2023April 11, 2017

By Claude Garcia, Anne Dray and Patrick Waeber

authors_claude-garcia_anne-dray_patrick-waeber — 1. Claude Garcia (biography)
2. Anne Dray (biography)
3. Patrick Waeber (biography)

A Spanish version and a French version of this post are available

Can we help the next generation of policy makers, business leaders and citizens to become creative, critical and independent thinkers? Can we make them aware of the nature of the problems they will be confronted with? Can we strengthen their capacity to foster and lead stakeholder processes to address these problems?

Yes.

We build on our experience as field researchers on environmental issues. We develop models that link ecological, social and economic processes, based on real study cases. We transform these models into role-playing games, both cooperative and competitive. And we use them to let students – the next generation of policy makers, business leaders and citizens – explore the complexities of natural resources management. They discover the roles of trust, knowledge, communication and conflict in a friendly environment. As games unfold, players observe, experience, experiment, and devise rules to resolve the tensions between competing demands.

Key readings about interdisciplinarity / Lecturas clave sobre interdisciplina

July 18, 2023October 25, 2016

By Bianca Vienni

An English version of this post is available

Si ud tuviera que elegir un conjunto de textos clave sobre la interdisciplina para traducir a otro idioma y utilizarlos en un grupo de discusión, ¿cuáles serían? Esa fue la tarea que nos propusimos en el Espacio Interdisciplinario de la Universidad de la República (UdelaR) en Uruguay.

Elegimos once textos que capturan la diversidad de enfoques sobre la interdisciplina y que también constituyen un punto de referencia para la producción académica.

Creating a pragmatic complexity culture / La creación de una cultura pragmática de la complejidad

August 24, 2022September 29, 2016

By Cristina Zurbriggen

An English version of this post is available

¿Cómo pueden los gobiernos, las comunidades y el sector privado efectivamente trabajar juntos para lograr un cambio social hacia el desarrollo sostenible?

En este blog describo los procesos claves que permitieron a Uruguay lograr uno de los regímenes más avanzados de protección del suelo de tierras de cultivo de secano en el mundo. Una explicación del proceso es la creación de una cultura pragmática de la complejidad, una cultura inclusiva, deliberativa que reconoce la naturaleza compleja del problema y abraza el potencial de lo posible.

The interplay between knowledge and power / La interacción entre el conocimiento y el poder

September 11, 2023July 14, 2016

By Cristina Zurbriggen

An English version of this post is available

La mayoría de los recientes enfoques para abordar problemas complejos no incluyen la dimensión política. Por otra parte, la ciencia política, así como los estudios de política pública y de gobierno contemporáneo han realizado escasas contribuciones al tratamiento de los procesos de toma de decisiones desde dinámicas complejas.

¿Cómo podemos desarrollar marcos innovadores que incorporen la dimensión política? ¿Cómo podemos articular la producción conocimiento considerando también la forma en que pensamos acerca de la política, la rendición de cuentas y la responsabilidad social? En concreto, ¿cuál es la dimensión política del proceso de co-creación de conocimiento y cuáles son las implicaciones de la participación política, la experimentación y el aprendizaje colectivo?