Problem framing

A communication framework for public engagement and impact

By Judith Friedlander and Tania Leimbach.

authors_judith-friedlander_tania_leimbach
1. Judith Friedlander (biography)
2. Tania Leimbach (biography)

How can researchers cut through ‘the infoglut’ to share their findings with communities? What communication strategies help raise the agenda of critical issues to drive impactful advocacy and action?

As researchers and practitioners, we want to better understand how to effectively frame critical issues in a hybrid media system, facilitate media uptake and engage the public in scalable change-making. To this end, we developed the MAVEN communication framework, which consists of:

  • Meta-frames (developing overarching concepts);
  • Actions and Applications (supporting local pilots and scalability);
  • Values (identifying shared community values and news values);
  • Evidence and Ethos (messaging from reputable stakeholders), and
  • News media (disseminating information within a hybrid media system).

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Actor constellation role plays

By Alexandra Frangenheim.

alexandra-frangenheim
Alexandra Frangenheim (biography)

How can transdisciplinary researchers gain a better understanding of systemic and multi-causal problems, including recognising different thought styles, appreciating the complexity of intervening, and anticipating points of conflict?

Actor constellation is a role play for identifying the relevance of various actors involved in specific problems. It is useful for problem framing when a research team is formed, for example to plan empirical inquiries or to identify relevant actors for addressing research questions. It also enables researchers from different disciplines and practitioners to uncover hidden dynamics and possible systemic solutions to the problem of interest, and to unlock the potential of shifting perspectives to ultimately develop new narratives.

When research participants represent relevant actors in a role play, their implicit assumptions about relationships, structures, interaction and actors’ knowledge are made explicit.

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A self-assessment checklist to improve interdisciplinarity in research projects / Un questionnaire d’auto-évaluation pour améliorer les projets de recherche interdisciplinaire

By Flore Nonchez.

A French version of this post is available

flore-nonchez
Flore Nonchez (biography)

How can researchers improve the quality of their interdisciplinary proposals? What would help in clarifying project formulation, enriching description, maximizing relevance, facilitating workplan implementation (by anticipating possible difficulties) and enhancing impact?

The self-assessment checklist provided below aims to help project leaders and their research teams systematically consider the specific interdisciplinary aspects of an interdisciplinary research project, whatever their original discipline or experience of interdisciplinarity.

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Using field experiences to generate transdisciplinary research questions

By Kimberly Bourne and Alison Deviney.

authors_kimberly-bourne_alison-deviney
1. Kimberly Bourne (biography)
2. Alison Deviney (biography)

What are the benefits of field experiences for large convergence research centers? How can they be used to generate new research questions that cross disciplines and benefit local communities?

We draw on a two-day retreat centered around a geographically specific issue to provide lessons that may be useful for others. The retreat combined field excursions and a brainstorming workshop to generate new research questions. An additional benefit was that it positively changed the power dynamics in the group.

In our case, the large convergence research center focuses on innovations for sustainable phosphorus management. A central field site is in South Florida, USA, where phosphorus pollution from agricultural and urban areas threatens a wetlands national park (the Everglades).

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A process for generating new cross-disciplinary projects

By Gemma Jiang

author_gemma-jiang
Gemma Jiang (biography)

What is a good way for researchers in large cross-disciplinary science initiatives, who may not know each other well, to generate viable project ideas?

This blog post introduces a field-tested “double helix” process that leverages the benefits of idea generation by a large group and idea refinement in small groups.

This double helix process is most helpful in large cross-disciplinary science initiatives that meet at least one of the following three characteristics:

  • Tackling wicked problems with both scientific and societal significance
  • Requiring deep integration across multiple disciplines that will eventually lead to new meta-disciplines
  • Consisting of more than 20 core research members.

The nature of the challenges, the depth of integration and the size of the group in such large initiatives require systemic support to move ideas to projects.

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System redesign toward creating shared value

By Moein Khazaei, Mohammad Ramezani, Amin Padash and Dorien DeTombe

authors_moein-khazaei_mohammad-ramezani_amin-padash_dorien-detombe
1. Moein Khazaei (biography)
2. Mohammad Ramezani (biography)
3. Amin Padash (biography)
4. Dorien DeTombe (biography)

How can services that are provided to citizens be overhauled so that they will survive, be competitive and be fair (eg., accessible to all)? Is there a systematic way in which shared value can be created? By shared value we mean combining social and environmental interests with corporate interests.

We have developed a methodology that we call “System redesign toward creating shared value” or SYRCS. It comprises 4 stages, shown in the figure below. They are:

  1. emancipation and critical thinking
  2. problem structuring
  3. multi-criteria and quantitative decision-making
  4. creating shared value.

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Considering uncertainty, awareness and ambiguity as a three-dimensional space

By Fabio Boschetti

author-fabio-boschetti
Fabio Boschetti (biography)

The concept of unknown unknowns highlights the importance of introspection in assessing knowledge. It suggests that finding our way in the set of known-knowns, known-unknowns, unknown-knowns and unknown-unknowns, reduces to asking:

  1. how uncertain are we? and
  2. how aware are we of uncertainty?

When a problem involves a decision-making team, rather than a single individual, we also need to ask:

  1. how do context and perception affect what we know?

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A heuristic framework for reflecting on joint problem framing

By BinBin Pearce and Olivier Ejderyan

authors_binbin-pearce_olivier-ejderyan
1. BinBin Pearce (biography)
2. Olivier Ejderyan (biography)

What is joint problem framing? What are the key issues that joint problem framing has to address? How can joint problem framing be improved?

What is joint problem framing?

A key aspect of tackling complex problems is effectively bringing together differing points of view. These points of view are what Craik (1943) refers to as “small-scale models” of the problem situation. These are mental models formed from each individual’s experiences, interests, knowledge and environment. These mental models then set the boundaries for what problem definitions and solutions are possible and relevant to consider.

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How can expertise in research integration and implementation help tackle complex problems?

By Gabriele Bammer

author - gabriele bammer
Gabriele Bammer (biography)

What is expertise in research integration and implementation? What is its role in helping tackle complex societal and environmental problems, especially those dimensions that define complexity?

Expertise in research integration and implementation

Addressing complex societal and environmental problems requires specific expertise over and above that contributed by existing disciplines, but there is little formal recognition of what that expertise is or reward for contributing it to a research team’s efforts. In brief, such expertise includes the ability to:

  • identify relevant disciplinary and stakeholder inputs
  • effectively integrate them for a more comprehensive understanding of the problem
  • support more effective actions to ameliorate the problem.

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A framework to evaluate the impacts of research on policy and practice

By Laura Meagher and David Edwards

authors_laura-meagher_david-edwards
1. Laura Meagher (biography)
2. David Edwards (biography)

What is meant by impact generation and how can it be facilitated, captured and shared? How can researchers be empowered to think beyond ‘instrumental’ impact and identify other changes generated by their work? How can the cloud of complexity be dispersed so that numerous factors affecting development of impacts can be seen? How can a way be opened for researchers to step back and reflect critically on what happened and what could be improved in the future? How can research teams and stakeholders translate isolated examples of impact and causes of impact into narratives for both learning and dissemination?

We have developed a framework to evaluate research impact in a way that addresses these questions. It has been piloted on 12 case studies led by Forest Research, a government research agency in UK (Edwards and Meagher 2019) and is likely to be useful to researchers more generally, perhaps especially but not exclusively those in applied fields. To date the framework has been found to be user-friendly and fit for purpose.

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Practical tips to foster research uptake

By Emily Hayter and Verity Warne

authors_emily-hayter_verity-warne
1. Emily Hayter (biography)
2. Verity Warne (biography)

How can researchers and policy makers work together to foster more systematic uptake of research in policy making?

In a series of workshops at the European Commission Joint Research Centre’s Evidence and Policy Summer School on migration and demography, participants identified some of the most critical stages where scientists and policymakers interact: problem definition, research process, and communication of results. We then built up a bank of practical ideas and suggestions for each stage. Although the focus of the workshops was on migration and demography, our suggestions have broader relevance.

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A checklist for documenting knowledge synthesis

By Gabriele Bammer

Gabriele Bammer (biography)

How do you write-up the methods section for research synthesizing knowledge from different disciplines and stakeholders to improve understanding about a complex societal or environmental problem?

In research on complex real-world problems, the methods section is often incomplete. An agreed protocol is needed to ensure systematic recording of what was undertaken. Here I use a checklist to provide a first pass at developing such a protocol specifically addressing how knowledge from a range of disciplines and stakeholders is brought together.

KNOWLEDGE SYNTHESIS CHECKLIST

1. What did the synthesis of disciplinary and stakeholder knowledge aim to achieve, which knowledge was included and how were decisions made?

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