Expertise in integration and implementation for transformative research
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
Expertise in the various dimensions of integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of transformative research on complex societal and environmental problems, such as global climate change, illicit drug use, refugees and economic migration, spiralling health care costs, poverty and other social inequalities. This research article Collection addresses the specialised knowledge, skills, competencies and dispositional attributes required to, for example, identify which disciplinary and stakeholder knowledges are relevant, synthesise different perspectives, manage power imbalances and legacies of colonisation in researching problems, and accommodate conflicting values and world views, including across different cultures.
Expertise has multiple elements that are often difficult to codify and there are few publication outlets where the ‘nitty-gritty’ of expertise and its challenges can be discussed and progressed. This Collection provides a platform where research expertise in integration and implementation for transformation can be recognised, described, synthesised, evaluated and improved.
Papers are invited that consider, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Detailed descriptions of elements of expertise (for example, competence in a particular method). Descriptions should be coupled with evaluations of one or more of: strengths and weaknesses, effectiveness, and how well the elements of expertise can be adapted to differing circumstances;
- Case studies highlighting the application of expertise, including lessons learnt from ‘failures’ for improving expertise;
- Initiatives overcoming fragmentation of expertise, including theoretical frameworks and ontologies providing a structure for accessing and synthesising expertise;
- Educational programs for cultivating expertise;
- Institutional recognition of expertise (for example, establishment of academic programs that specifically include research expertise in integration and implementation).
Contributions may be literature reviews, theory-based, or practice-based and should move beyond straight description to also incorporate critical reflection, synthesis and/or analysis.
Contributions may be based on a) established and developing approaches, such as inter- and trans-disciplinarity, systems thinking, action research, implementation science, knowledge brokering, and team science, b) case-based experience, including single or multiple, small or large-scale examples or c) cross-cutting research covering areas such as innovation and unknowns. Experience in integration and implementation in transformative research on any complex societal and environmental problem is relevant.
Editors
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Gabriele Bammer, PhD
The Australian National University, Australia
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Tigran Keryan, PhD
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna
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BinBin Jiang Pearce, PhD
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
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Marianne Penker, PhD
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria
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Michael O’Rourke, PhD
Michigan State University, USA
Gabriele Bammer, PhD, The Australian National University, Australia
Gabriele Bammer is developing the new discipline of Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) to improve research strengths for tackling complex real-world problems through synthesis of disciplinary and stakeholder knowledge, understanding and managing diverse unknowns, and providing integrated research support for policy and practice change (see i2s.anu.edu.au). She curates the popular Integration and Implementation Insights (http://i2Insights.org), which allows researchers world-wide to share methods, frameworks, processes, concepts, theories and competencies to better understand and act on complex societal and environmental problems, at the same time building a global community of researchers with this expertise.
Tigran Keryan, PhD, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria
Tigran Keryan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation, and Conservation Planning at BOKU University, Vienna. He completed his doctoral studies at the Doctoral School Transitions to Sustainability (T2S) at BOKU University, focusing on integrating inter- and transdisciplinary approaches into post-Soviet academic institutions. With postdoc experience at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (UTAD), Portugal, he is currently involved in embedding nature-based solutions concepts within universities and assessing ecosystem services through participatory approaches. His research focuses on fostering collaboration among academics, practitioners, and policymakers to develop practical solutions for societal sustainability issues.
BinBin Jiang Pearce, PhD, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
BinBin Jiang Pearce is an Assistant Professor for policy analysis and design at Delft University of Technology, in the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, based in the Netherlands. Her research interests include public participation processes in the energy transition, policy design for the energy transition, collaborative decision making for sustainable development, joint problem framing processes, integrated systems and design thinking. She is the coordinator and lead principal investigator of the Horizon 2020 project Energy Citizens for Inclusive Decarbonization (ENCLUDE). She was trained as an environmental engineer at Stanford University and received a PhD from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies focused on urban metabolism and industrial ecology.
Marianne Penker, PhD, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Austria
Marianne Penker is a Professor for Rural Sociology and Rural Development at the BOKU Institute for Sustainable Economic Development and chair of the UNESCO Man & Biosphere National Committee at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. As a sustainability scientist, she is committed to inter- and transdisciplinary research supporting transformative solutions in rural areas in Europe and beyond. Her work, which largely builds on Ostrom’s Social-Ecological-Systems framework, has changed the way people think about agri-food governance and the integration of diverse types of academic and stakeholder knowledge. Via the network of European Academies, she contributed to the SAPEA report on a sustainable food system for the EU and presented its results in front of the European Parliament.
Michael O'Rourke, PhD, Michigan State University, USA
Michael O’Rourke is Professor of Philosophy and Faculty in AgBioResearch and Environmental Science & Policy at Michigan State University. He is Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, an NSF-sponsored research consortium that investigates philosophical approaches to facilitating interdisciplinary research (http://tdi.msu.edu/), Executive Director of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative Center, a new service center at MSU that is the principal locus of Toolbox work, and recently directed the MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity. His research interests include interdisciplinary theory, epistemology, communication and epistemic integration in collaborative, cross-disciplinary research, and linguistic communication between intelligent agents.
Prospective authors may contact the Guest Editors via email:
