Month: March 2023

How to co-create in research and innovation for societal challenges

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Carla Alvial Palavicino and Cristian Matti

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Co-creation for Transformative Innovation Policy: an implementation case for projects structured as portfolio of knowledge services’.

For addressing grand societal challenges such as climate change or biodiversity loss, the power of research and innovation is an important consideration. In this context, a new framework has emerged that invites us to re-think how we can maximise the impact of research and innovation for societal challenges: ‘Transformative Innovation Policy’ or TIP. This framework emphasises the role of co-creation, learning and reflexivity as part of research, technology development and innovation processes.

Our Evidence & Policy article, ‘Co-creation for Transformative Innovation Policy: an implementation case for projects structured as portfolio of knowledge services’, explores what co-creation means in practice for TIP, using the case of two innovation projects developed by the TIP consortium and EIT Climate-KIC, two international organisations seeking to promote innovation for global challenges. These projects were co-developed between experts on transformative innovation policy from the organisations previously mentioned, and scientific researchers and consultants grouped in two consortiums: one focused on sustainable mobility solutions (SuSMo) and the other focused on sustainable landscape management (SATURN). These projects have aimed at creating new knowledge that can be used by societal stakeholders in addressing specific sustainability problems and developing a ‘portfolio’ of knowledge services.

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Considerations for conducting consensus in partnered research

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Kelsey Wuerstl, Miranda A. Cary, Katrina Plamondon, Davina Banner-Lukaris, Nelly Oelke, Kathryn M. Sibley, Kristy Baxter, Mathew Vis-Dunbar, Alison M. Hoens, Ursula Wick, Stefan Bigsby and Heather Gainforth

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Building consensus in research partnerships: a scoping review of consensus methods’.

When reading articles describing a collaborative research decision, such as a research partnership creating a list of research priorities, we often read the statement, ‘The research partnership came to consensus’. But what does this statement actually mean – what is consensus, what does it mean to come to consensus, and how did the research partnership come to consensus?

Research partnerships are characterised by researchers and research users engaged in a collaborative research project to enhance the relevance and usefulness of research findings. Consensus methods require group members to develop and agree to support a solution that is in the group’s best interest. However, simply doing partnered research and using consensus methods does not guarantee the research addresses the priorities of those most affected, nor that inclusion and power dynamics have been considered. Consensus methods are often poorly reported and missing crucial information about how the research partnership made decisions about the project, as well as how issues of inclusion, equity and power dynamics were navigated.

We conducted a scoping review to better understand how research partnerships use consensus methods in health research and how these research partnerships navigate inclusion and power dynamics. Our findings, published in Evidence & Policy, identified six recommendations to enhance the quality of research teams’ consensus methods.

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