By Emilia Nagy and Martina Schäfer

2. Martina Schäfer (biography; photo source: Landtag Brandenburg)
How can the formative, ie. process, evaluation of transdisciplinary research projects best incorporate the likely link between process and outcomes in such research? What are some useful approaches for developing an effective evaluation plan with a lens of impact orientation?
We describe how to systematically formulate criteria and indicators for the evaluation of transdisciplinary projects by combining:
- impactful research practices (Lux et al., 2019)
- impact heuristics (Schäfer et al., 2021)
- theory-of-change method (Belcher et al., 2019).
The combination of these approaches provides a strong foundation for impact orientation in all project phases.