‘To research very complex problems, you need to work with collaborative research approaches'

When Stella Pfisterer graduated from her Bachelor, she was interested in learning more about collaborative approaches between governments, businesses, civil society organizations and knowledge institutes. Stella’s journey led her to work in different organizations, public and private, before she pursued a MSc in Public Administration at Leiden University. She realized a two-sided gap between academia and practice when it comes to collaboration for sustainable development: “First, academic knowledge was lacking behind in understanding the reality of collaboration in practice, and second, I was wondering why not “walk the talk” and develop knowledge on collaboration in a collaborative way with practitioners”, she says. 

Bridging the gap between academia and practice 

Stella got involved in practice-oriented research and education while working as researcher at the Maastricht School of Management, where she researched the effectiveness of partnerships in several African and Asian countries. She continued this route, and since 2011, Stella works as a researcher at RSM’s Partnerships Resource Center. She collaborates with non-academic organizations to jointly explore answers on how collaborations can best address society’s most pressing issues. Collaboration is not only her research topic, but she is also convinced that doing research collaboratively with practice can create ‘collaborative advantage’: “As researcher you can create more impact with your research when it is done jointly with practice. This requires to do research ‘with’ organizations, rather than ‘on’ them”, she says.  

For example, Stella recently ran a research project with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and eight Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships to explore how the impact of these collaborations can be captured. Over a period of two years, researchers and practitioners had regular interactions and co-developed a tool that can support Multi-stakeholder Partnerships to better understand, monitor and communicate their impact. “What drives me is to support organizations in better understanding processes of collaboration, which ultimately helps them to steer their partnerships for impact”, Stella says.

Collaborative research approaches are needed to solve society’s challenges 

Asked to describe her work in academic terms, Stella refers to ‘action research’ and ‘collaborative research’. Her approach also matches DIT’s definition of ‘transformative research’, a term that is still gaining traction with practitioners. To Stella, these collaborative research approaches are paramount in a time when society faces challenges such as growing economic inequality and the climate crisis: “To research highly complex problems, you need to try different collaborative research approaches.” Stella explains further, “Collaborative research approaches are impact-driven.” The research arises not out of a question from an individual researcher, but as a shared process of reflection between the researcher and the practice partners. Collaborative research approaches start from the understanding that interventions take place which improve practice and thereby develop into new knowledge (what works, what does not work and why?). Because of its collaborative nature, such research has the potential for creating direct change. In addition, Stella highlights that “a strength of collaborative research lies in its ability of yielding deeper understanding of what happens in practice for research and equally it helps practice participants themselves to gain deeper understanding by reflecting on their experience”.   

Such research approaches at the interface of academia and practice should help to bring to light and unravel existing knowledge in practice and facilitate joint sense-making between practice partners and researcher. “To do so, as researcher you need to have courage to try out (new) approaches. On the one hand, this may mean that you must move beyond your comfort zone but on the other hand, it provides methodological insights and learnings,” Stella added. What supported Stella in this case, for instance, was to become familiar with a wide range of (partnership) facilitation approaches and see how these can be used and aligned with qualitative research methods.

Tips for other action researchers 

Doing research differently does not come without its challenges. For those (interested in) doing action research, Stella offers some tips: 

• Manage expectations: Doing research collaboratively with organizations can be administratively difficult, as Stella experienced: “It's sometimes difficult to make the connection between university and organizations contract wise. Collaborative research is not as writing a tender and you receive the funding and will do the research based on pre-defined and clearly set outputs. It sometimes takes long to get contracts signed between organizations because this type of research is not a service delivered by the researcher to an organization but it is based on mutuality. Being clear about the expectations from all involved and the roles and responsibilities that everyone has in the joint project is key. Developing such collaborative projects often takes time. Working on trust-building is important when developing the joint research project.”
• Create understanding for each other’s needs: Working with organizations also requires different skills and different attitudes compared to more traditional research approaches: “When doing collaborative research, I experienced that as a researcher you need to deal with the changing needs and realities of the organizations you're working with over the period of the research. It is helpful to have regular reflection moments with the partners to take stock whether the research design that was co-developed at the onset of the joint project still fits the needs or may need to be adapted. Here it is necessary to explain to practice partners what is required from the research perspective to develop sound and qualitative good research. Creating understanding for each other’s needs is key in the process of co-creation that requires flexibility from all involved.”
• Create outputs that are of value for all involved: Collaborative research often results in various outputs for all involved, such as workshops, tools, teaching cases, practice publications or academic publications. It will also result in less tangible outputs such as new or strengthened connections or methodological insights etc., and these results also should be valued. Stella explains: “Outputs of collaborative research often need to serve multiple audiences: You cannot communicate with an academic in the same way you communicate with practitioners. You need to develop different outputs. For example, whereas an academic is interested in how the researcher come to their conclusions and how the findings contribute to theory, a practitioner is interested in concrete recommendations or tools that can directly improve practice. In addition, from an academic perspective maybe not every project you're doing will deliver a top-journal publication. The issue is that quite often, if you work based on a project approach, you don't have time to write an academic output because often we need to have the next project lined-up. In addition, an academic publication may not be the key priority of your practice partners.” If you do not want to end up developing academic output mainly in your free-time, Stella advises that “budget for academic output needs to be allocated in the project and/or the institutional budget. In some cases, individual practice partners find it an interesting option to co-author a publication to learn and develop further their (academic) writing skills. That is what collaborative research can facilitate, too!”

About Stella Pfisterer

Stella is a Research Fellow at the Partnerships Resource Centre (PrC) at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. She has extensive experience in designing and conducting collaborative research projects with businesses, governments, international organizations, and civil society organizations. Her research mainly focuses on cross-sector collaborations and partnerships in the field of international and sustainable development, and she is specialized in governance, tensions, and impacts of partnerships. Stella is an Accredited Partnership Broker and she bridges academic knowledge and practice insights with her research and educational activities.