Time commitment

Six lessons for newly-forming large research consortia

By Daniel Black and Geoff Bates

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1. Daniel Black (biography)
2. Geoff Bates (biography)

What are some key tips for establishing new, large consortia to tackle complex global challenges? What are the best ways to coordinate large groups of researchers, practitioners and publics towards a shared goal?

Describing this type of research is cumbersome. As a shorthand we have started to use the terms ‘LMITs’ (pronounced ‘limits’) and ‘New LMITs’ to denote similarly characterised projects and teams that are: ‘Newly forming’, ‘Large-scale’, ‘Mission-orientated’, and ‘Inter- and Trans-disciplinary’.

Drawing on our own experience over the past three years of establishing a New LMIT, we suggest six primary inter-related recommendations for other New LMITs, and for those who fund or support such research groups:

1. Factor in (far) more time than you might expect
2. Seek out funders who understand

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Challenges to science-policy-society interactions in transdisciplinary research

By Oghenekaro N. Odume, Akosua B. K. Amaka-Otchere, Blessing N. Onyima, Fati Aziz, Sandra B. Kushitor and Sokhna Thiam

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1. Oghenekaro N. Odume; 2. Akosua B. K. Amaka-Otchere; 3. Blessing N. Onyima; 4. Fati Aziz; 5. Sandra B. Kushitor; 6. Sokhna Thiam (biographies)

Why is transdisciplinary research that aims to co-produce knowledge across academic disciplines, policy contexts and societal domains often so difficult? What are the key challenges that need to be overcome?

We identified five key challenges when we analysed five projects implemented in nine African cities which were part of the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA) program (Odume et al., 2021).

Challenge #1: Conceptual threshold crossing

Science-policy-society interactions require active engagement of diverse actors, often with different discursive language and epistemic backgrounds. Translating academic discourse into accessible everyday language can be challenging. In the same vein, policy and societal actors use discourse unfamiliar to academic actors.

Conceptual threshold crossing in terms of intellectual, ontological, and cognitive transformation is particularly challenging when projects are not just about understanding problems or raising awareness, but about true co-production of knowledge and co-ownership of the resulting outcomes.

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Integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research: how can the leadership challenges be addressed?

By Lisa Deutsch and Sabine Hoffmann

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1. Lisa Deutsch (biography)
2. Sabine Hoffmann (biography)

How can the integration required in large inter- and transdisciplinary programs be effectively led? What challenges do leaders of integration in such programs face and how can they address them? What are the particular challenges in using a theory of change as an integrative tool?

We describe five key challenges that we encountered when leading the integration for a large 10-year inter- and transdisciplinary research program, which explored novel non-grid water and sanitation systems that can function as comparable alternatives to conventional large network-based systems. We experienced these challenges when applying the tool Theory of Change to facilitate communication, collaboration and integration among the team members (for more on theory of change see the i2Insights contribution by Heléne Clark). We also share the strategies we employed to address these challenges. The lessons we developed are likely to be applicable to other inter- and transdisciplinary research programs.

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Storytelling and systems change

An i2Insights story based on one originally told by Thea Snow, David Murikumthara, Teya Dusseldorp, Rachel Fyfe, Lila Wolff and Jane McCracken

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1. Thea Snow; 2. David Murikumthara; 3. Teya Dusseldorp; 4. Rachel Fyfe; 5. Lila Wolff; 6. Jane McCracken (biographies)

How is storytelling important in driving systems change? What does good storytelling look like? What makes it hard to tell stories about systems change work? We address these three questions.

But first, what do we mean by systems change? We use the definition developed by New Philanthropy Capital (Abercrombie et al. 2015): “Systems change aims to bring about lasting change by altering underlying structures and supporting mechanisms which make the system operate in a particular way. These can include policies, routines, relationships, resources, power structures and values.”

How is storytelling important in driving systems change?

Stories play different roles at different levels of the system. They can be used to change the system, as well to evaluate, understand and showcase the change that is occurring.

One way for stories to change the system is by supporting individuals to change how they see themselves, their communities, and their broader context. Systems change when people change: how they relate to others, who they are in relationship with, and what they believe they are capable of doing. Stories change the system by supporting individuals to:

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Three lessons for community engagement in international research

By Aysha Fleming

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Aysha Fleming (biography)

What’s required for researchers to effectively engage with local communities in international research tackling complex socio-ecological problems?

In a project involving Indonesian and Australian researchers working with local communities to restore peatlands in Indonesia, we identified three key elements for international collaboration with stakeholders:

  1. project design
  2. individual and collective skills and competencies
  3. processes to support knowledge integration.

Project design

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Seven tips for developing large-scale cross-disciplinary research proposals

By Gemma Jiang, Jin Wen and Simi Hoque

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1. Gemma Jiang (biography)
2. Jin Wen (biography)
3. Simi Hoque (biography)

What are the key ingredients for successfully developing large-scale cross-disciplinary research proposals? What’s required for a team to successfully work together at the proposal development stage?

Here we provide seven lessons based on our experience, divided into:

  • team characteristics
  • structuring the grant proposal writing process.

Team characteristics

Lesson 1: Invite a mix of new blood and established experience.
It is useful to have team members at various stages of their careers, as well as researchers who have worked together previously and those who have never met before. It can work well to have clusters of researchers who have worked intensively within the cluster, but who are new to each other across clusters.

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Transdisciplinary action research: A guiding framework for collaboration

By Steven Lam, Michelle Thompson, Kathleen Johnson, Cameron Fioret and Sarah Hargreaves

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1. Steven Lam; 2. Michelle Thompson; 3. Kathleen Johnson; 4. Cameron Fioret; 5. Sarah Hargreaves (biographies)

How can graduate students work productively with each other and community partners? Many researchers and practitioners are engaging in transdisciplinarity, yet there is surprisingly little critical reflection about the processes and outcomes of transdisciplinarity, particularly from the perspectives of graduate students and community partners who are increasingly involved.

Our group of four graduate students from the University of Guelph and one community partner from the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario, reflect on our experiences of working together toward community food security in Canada, especially producing a guidebook for farmer-led research (Fioret et al. 2018). As none of us had previously worked together, nor shared any disciplines in common, we found it essential to first develop a guiding framework for collaboration. Our thinking combined the following key principles from action research and transdisciplinarity:

  • reflexivity,
  • participation and partnership,
  • methods and process, and
  • integration.

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Facilitating serendipity for interdisciplinary research

By Catherine Lyall

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Catherine Lyall (biography)

How can institutions facilitate the serendipitous encounters that so often appear to characterise interdisciplinary careers? Is there an inherent hypocrisy in university leaders, research funders and policymakers claiming that they want to facilitate interdisciplinarity and then not creating the conditions that experienced interdisciplinarians say they need in order to foster this style of working?

Here I examine the importance of informal interactions, physical locations, the ‘small stuff’ and ‘slow research.’ I draw on interviews with British academics (at various career stages from postdoc to professor) whose doctoral studies had been funded by deliberately interdisciplinary studentship schemes. For more detail, including the sources of the quotations, see Lyall (2019).

Informality is crucial

Finding the time and space for informal discussions with colleagues is critical.

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The role of persistence in influencing policy with research

By David McDonald

Author - David McDonald
David McDonald (biography)

Seeking to influence policy with our research is difficult. Sometimes we feel that it is too hard, we are not achieving our goals fast enough, and we really should give up and find easier ways of operating. However, persistence, rather than giving up, seems to be a characteristic of those of us working in this domain!

What do we mean by persistence? A good dictionary definition is ‘continuing firmly, especially despite obstacles and protests’. Does that sound familiar: facing obstacles to doing high-quality implementation work, and protests from colleagues who do not share our perceptions of the value of working in this manner?

Learning about persistence from decades of experience at the ODI

The London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has worked for decades in developing concepts, processes and tools to help researchers and others work more effectively at the research/policy interfaces, particularly regarding international development and humanitarian issues.

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10 tips for next generation interdisciplinary research

By Rachel Kelly

Author - Rachel Kelly
Rachel Kelly (biography)

Can we develop a shared understanding on how to engage in an interdisciplinary setting that will be useful in addressing current and future grand challenges?

Advice provided by interdisciplinary experts from 25 countries, across all continents, and with over 240 years cumulative experience (Kelly, et al., 2019) is combined here into succinct guidance that aims to empower researchers wishing to engage in interdisciplinary endeavors. The ten tips are also summarized in the figure below (focused on socio-ecological researchers).

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How to support research consortia

By Bruce Currie-Alder and Georgina Cundill Kemp

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1. Bruce Currie-Alder (biography)
2. Georgina Cundill Kemp (biography)

A research consortium is a model of collaboration that brings together multiple institutions that are otherwise independent from one another to address a common set of questions using a defined structure and governance model. Increasingly consortia are also being joined in cross-consortia networks. How can connections be made across the institutions in individual consortia, as well as in cross-consortia networks, to ensure that such collaborations are more than the sum of their parts?

During 2014–2018 we were involved in the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA), which supported four transdisciplinary research consortia involving more than 40 institutions across 15 countries. CARIAA’s aim was to generate new knowledge and inform efforts that build resilience among vulnerable people living in hotspots of climate change.

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Funding transformative research: 10 key stages

By Flurina Schneider

Flurina Schneider (biography)

How can funding programmes maximize the potential of transformative research that seeks to make a real difference? How can funders support a more hands-on approach to societal challenges such as ecological crises? A group of Swiss transdisciplinary researchers and funding-agency staff identified 10 overlapping stages and their key ingredients. The stages are also described in the figure below.

1. Preparation of the funding programme.
From the start, funding programme leaders should seek dialogue with all those concerned with the societal challenge, including decision-makers and affected communities. Only then should they create a formal programme description and announce a call for project proposals—while still leaving room for grantees (those who receive grants) to adapt the framing of problems and goals.

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