‘There is need for a different kind of institutional design in academia'

During the ‘Conversation on Transformative Research Practices @ EUR’ on February 24th, hosted by the Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform, we had an inspiring conversation with a diverse set of participants. We were talking with researchers from at least 12 disciplines about their transformative research practice and different methods and tools. We also discussed what is needed to make space for transformative research practices at EUR, and why transformative researchers sometimes feel a close connection to Gaulish warriors Asterix and Obelix.

We welcomed a diverse set of people from EUR and other institutes, conducting research on topics such as "how diverse disciplinary cultures form dialogues", "understanding how collaboration works in the absence of consensus", "legal design research about how visualization impacts court proceedings or victim perceptions", "addressing environmental harms as environmental crime", on "organizing local communities and circular value chains", "stimulating imagining 'different' ways of thinking and acting", and "fostering collaboration with water management companies". Together they considered why they conduct transformative, engaged, impact-oriented research and which aspects are inhibiting or enabling more transformative research at EUR.

Contributing to real-life problems

"Transformative research is for me that at the very moment that you start thinking of a research project that you not only think about what is academically interesting, but also then what do you want to contribute with your research." Inge Hutter, Dean of ISS, gave some inspiring insights in what she understands as transformative research, why she engages in this type of research and how important listening to each other and learning from each other is for doing this research.

"So what do you want to contribute to change in society or a particular problem? That sounds easy, but it's not. I think many of us as researchers, we're just focusing on ‘This is an interesting topic. I'm going to work on it’ and not even thinking about what you want to change. But if you want to make a change, it means that you're, of course, then first starting with dialogues with possible stakeholders, other societal stakeholders, participants of your research locally. Before you do anything, you have to identify a problem that is really at stake for the participants of your research" she explained. "For me, that's very much key to transformative research, meaning that by hearing the voices of people also the transformation is with and through and by people themselves. If you want to change something, you have to start from the people themselves, listen to them, learn from them because anything you want to change, when you don't first listen to them and don’t do it with them, it will not work."

However, just listening is not enough. “I think that you have to find each other and learn from each other, but then also find solutions.” … “If you're producing academic outcome and outcome and outcome and it seems to be so much focused on publications and the quantity of publications rather than the quality, for whom are we then doing research?” The collaboration with societal stakeholders shouldn’t just result in a research question, but also in the co-creation of such a question and the necessary intervention. Another point raised by Inge is that this distinction between researchers and stakeholders is not as clear as it seems: “we as academicians also should see ourselves as a societal stakeholder. And I think we sometimes don't do that and don't see us like that as if you're outside of society.” Researchers are just as much part of society as non-academics, even if it is their work to study it.

Transdisciplinary collaboration and feeling like Asterix & Obelix

When talking about what is needed to make space for more of such transformative research practices at EUR, participants had very explicit ideas. They articulated a strong demand for learning, knowledge exchange, networking activities, different research cultures, inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, and opening up to societal stakeholders. But also the need for change in the workflow, institutional rules that allow for more cooperation, different recognition and rewards systems that allow for more diversity, institutional reflexivity and more space in terms of time and money were discussed by the participants.

When listening to this conversation, we see that there are many impact-oriented researchers at EUR, but these researchers sometimes work in a traditional institutional setting that is not in line with transformative research practices. This leads to researchers working in isolated islands, feeling a strong desire to connect and exchange. So, if you as a transformative researcher have every wondered why you feel a strong emotional connection to Asterix and Obelix, Derk Loorbach, Professor at ESSB and academic lead of the DIT platform, explains what might be the reason for that:

"Asterix and Obelix live in this tiny village in the Roman Empire that resists the Romans. And with the magic potion (…) they can together defeat the Romans, which is obviously the regime, the Roman Empire regime. The regime has conquered the whole of Europe except for this small village in Gaul. I think this is sort of a metaphor. You could say within the traditional academic regime, all the structures and the whole culture is built to facilitate disciplinary knowledge accumulation and a way of doing research and education that is, to a large extent, linear. It's about applying methods to develop knowledge and understanding, then formulate recommendations and then you give them to whatever policy makers or students. … So, there is this dominant academic logic. But a more transformative way of working, co-creating, is a much more collaborative effort. You invest much more in engagement and in experimentation. You don't develop your knowledge only within the discipline, but it's inter- and transdisciplinary. It's much less specified or bound within a specific discipline or area. So, by necessity, the practice of doing transformative research is at odds with the institutional design of the university. And that makes you feel sometimes like you're this small village fighting up against the big Roman academic empire. In our theoretical model of transitions, we know that we are not the only ones. There are other villages like this one, but they are in different corners of the empire. These little villages don't work together or they don't know each other, or they maybe have their own fight with the regime." 

What is the best thing to do when you feel like a small village resisting the Roman empire? Build coalitions of small villages, get in touch with other transformative researchers and join the DIT platform.

There is a reason why this kind of research is growing now, explains Derk: “I'm in a lot of conversations (...) with colleagues in the social sciences that feel engaged research is a normative form of research. And I'm quite proud of it actually, because I think we should be open about our own assumptions and the methods that we bring. But we should also want to be normative when it means that we speak out on injustices and unsustainability in this world and that we engage with processes and try to contribute to these that actually might lead to a more fundamental transformative change.” … “We also feel the time is ripe for it because there is a momentum. There's a bigger acknowledgement also at our university level, and a bit more internationally that there is need for a different kind of institutional design in academia.”

What is next?

Our first conversation was just the start of many more. The Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform will start publishing a series of profiles this month, where we talk with EUR colleagues who are working on transformative research about their work, what motivates them and what challenges they encounter. If you are interested in exchanging experiences with fellow researchers, on 7th of April there is a workshop during the Share Your Knowledge Week on ethics in transformative/engaged research. In this session we will explore together what the ethical dilemmas are when working with stakeholders in your research.

The DIT platform has opened a Slack channel where anyone can join to discuss transformative research and its opportunities and challenges, as well as to connect to colleagues from different disciplines. You can request access by sending an email to dit@eur.nl. The conversation we had in the session on the 24th of February was also a means to gather more examples and input to improve our working paper on transformative research at EUR. Colleagues are invited to collaborate with us in writing a new version of this paper. Connect to us by joining Slack or contacting Anoek Menten-Degeling, Quartermaster Research at DIT.

Exploring transformative research with DIT

We hope you enjoyed reading this piece. It is part of our series “Exploring transformative research”. In a first working paper, DIT has started off drawing an ideal-type picture of what Transformative Research could mean. This blog series is meant to take a step back and to explore the many facets of transformative research in practice as well as to discuss and trace the changes necessary in universities and the academic system to enable such research. We are interested in questions such as: How are researchers doing research that addresses societal challenges and/or contributes to making our societies more just and sustainable? In which ways are they innovating the way research is done? What are they struggling with in doing so? Why are they doing transformative research and what excites them about it? If you have a story to share about doing transformative research yourself, please reach out to the DIT platform.