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Short abstract:

Funding calls have a central role in constructing the forms of interdisciplinarity that research and innovation actors experience. Indeed, funding calls specifically set the conditions for possibility, in how projects on sustainability's grand challenges are designed and constructed.

Long abstract:

Funding calls actively shape the research and innovation landscape through the opportunities that they provide. Likewise, funding calls are also actively shaped by (as artefacts of the social processes behind) research and innovation communities. In recognising this, STS scholars are well-placed to reflect on the implications of the recent deluge of project funding that seeks to combat societal challenges, for instance associated with sustainability.

I assert that much can be gained from opening-up the institutional experiences that sit behind the provision of project funding calls; from funding call conception and drafting, to proposal evaluation and project award. Within these processes, it is critical to acknowledge how these interactions are dependent on both institutional and more tacit/unspoken processes. There is scare empirical investigation of such experiences in the literature.

The aim of this study is to investigate the chronology of negotiations that occurs between key institutional players, as they negotiate contrasting expectations in their work on funding large-scale sustainability research projects. We give special attention to how different forms of interdisciplinarity are imagined, designed-in, rewarded, excluded, etc., and with what effects for the knowledges being made and transformations being sought. What roles are given to Social Sciences and Humanities, for instance? Which communities are expected to come together? What does all this mean for how interdisciplinarity is being institutionally enacted? I discuss the findings from 15 interviews with actors involved in e.g. EU Member State delegations, European Commission Directorate-General call drafting, National Contact Point dissemination, and European Commission Agency evaluation.

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Short abstract:

Based on funding information and interviews with diverse actors, we present findings on how research funding criteria shape design and execution of inter- and transdisciplinary research projects. We show that singular criteria can both stimulate and constrain heterogeneous practices.

Long abstract:

While many research funders aim to stimulate inter- and transdisciplinary research (ITDR) through various funding instruments, little is known about those instruments shape ITDR in practice. Therefore, we set out to understand how funding requirements, funding discourses, and applicant decisions shape design and execution of ITDR. We selected two funding instruments from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) that aim to specifically stimulate ITDR. For those instruments, we analyzed call information and interviewed different actors involved in project design and execution. We observed heterogeneity of ITDR practices in cross-disciplinary and extra-academic representation, relationships, and collaboration. This heterogeneity in practices was much larger than we expected based on the funding information that was of a more singular nature. We saw that the power of funders and applicants jointly and interactively shaped those heterogeneous ITDR practices, further governed by other power forces at play in the research funding and policy landscape. For instance, for one of the instruments, NWO requires applicants to fill out a Theory of Change (ToC) format as to stimulate ITDR. This stimulated some applicants - especially those with little experience with ITDR - to approach their research fundamentally differently from how they normally would, taking the impact of their research as a starting point. However, others felt constrained by the specific ToC format NWO deployed, and felt it was too linear, limiting their ITDR projects. We argue that by exerting power funders can thus both raise the bar for ITDR, but also setting a ceiling.

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Short abstract:

This contribution problematizes interdisciplinarity within two European-funded projects. Findings uncover two main issues: the frictions between institutions and project dynamics and how interdisciplinarity is enacted in practice by different actors.

Long abstract:

In the evolving landscape of scientific research and knowledge production, interdisciplinarity is key. It reconfigures relations between technoscience and society, fostering accountability and social innovation (Barry and Born 2013). European-funded projects are an interesting case in point, as EU agencies openly encourage interdisciplinary collaborations though prestigious grants.

This contribution discusses the findings from two European projects funded within the “Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation” scheme. The projects – Pie News/Commonfare and Grassroots Wavelenghts – aimed at confronting societal challenges such as precariousness and media pluralism through the participatory design of digital technologies: a digital platform fostering basic income and community radio stations, respectively. More specifically, we present insights from a qualitative study – comprising semi-structured interviews with work package representatives of the two consortia and the analysis of internal project-related documents – aimed at understanding the nuances of interdisciplinary collaborations. Project consortia were indeed composed of a variety of disciplines and roles: sociologists, designers, computer scientists, NGOs, and local communities.

In doing so, we have reconstructed a twofold dynamic based on the role of funding agencies and schemes in shaping interdisciplinary projects and teams, and how interdisciplinarity is experienced and enacted in practice. Data analysis uncovers two main issues. First, the frictions between institutional frameworks at different levels and their relations with project dynamics. Second, how different actors involved in the project translate interdisciplinarity at the interplay between personal expectations and cultures, ruptures in professional routines, and problems and attempts to continuously mend the project fabric.

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Short abstract:

This paper explores the presenters' navigating of the intersection of academia and politics when advising the UK on its transition to Net Zero at IPPO. It analyses their marshalling of global evidence and reflects on the tensions and opportunities for knowledge brokers seeking to guide society.

Long abstract:

What kinds of institutions should act as brokers for complex transitions and what methods should they use? Can they guide not just policymakers but also civil society, business and others to help link generalised knowledge with diverse contexts?

The International Public Policy Observatory (IPPO) is an example of one institution trying to do just that, bringing together academics in public policy, STS and a range of social disciplines to assess and mobilize evidence to responsibly and proactively inform policymakers in four national governments (UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) as well as municipalities. Established during the pandemic to provide social science evidence for decision-makers on Covid-19, it now occupies a broader role in the policy ecosystem, seeking to reduce social harms by providing evidence about impactful interventions on big, strategic issues.

This paper sets out the presenting team’s experiences in helping the UK on its rocky journey in pursuit of Net Zero, while also drawing on their work with the European Union on ‘Whole of Government Innovation’ on for big societal transitions.

Using their work on organising society-wide conversations for the green transition, it unpacks the tension between the slow-shifting objectives of research funders and the fast-moving reality of British politics. It also provides insights on the prospects for translating an international evidence base into a specific domestic context. Reflecting on what scholarship tells us about ‘boundary’ institutions like IPPO, it argues for diversity by design in knowledge brokerage when seeking to guide or encourage broader societal change.

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Short abstract:

Comparative results of interdisciplinary 2 day citizen juries conducted in 2017/ 2022 in communities in Sk, Canada to set a net-zero power production regime by 2050 are reported. Survey before and after the interdisciplinary experiment and constructed policy focused strategies are discussed.

Long abstract:

The paper answers the questions what does early involvement of people in planning net zero power production systems look like after an interdisciplinary 2 day citizen jury? And how do results change over time?

Using the same methodology, jurors constructed strategies after interacting with experts from climate science, power production engineering, and community engaged social science. Citizen juries were conducted in 3 communities in 2017 and 4 communities in 2022. Qualitative data was collected through transcripts of discussion as well as strategies, as well as quantitative data of pre and post surveys. The paper highlights policy based outcomes based on context, place based characteristics, as well as political and technology change.

Historically a fossil fuel, oil and gas region, Saskatchewan is an appropriate case study for transitioning to clean and renewable power production. The paper is original as it concerns upstream system power production portfolios and not failed projects.

The communities studied exhibited place-based attachments and priorities dependent on both surrounding industry and power production sources. Coal, oil and gas communities continued to support fossil fuel generation together with carbon capture and sequestration to a greater extent than other communities. Support for fossil fuel sources decreased over time. While cost of power production sources and impact on Gross Domestic Product was a significant concern at the beginning of the citizen jury, it decreased substantially by the end of the citizen jury. The value of the environment increased over time.

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Short abstract:

Working in an extravagantly multi-sited biodiversity project, post pandemic-crisis, has exposed shortcoming of embedded STS methods. We reflect on ongoing methodological bricolage while investigating – and practicing – inter+transdisciplinary collaboration with collective STS and oral history work.

Long abstract:

In this paper, we reflect upon ongoing methodological bricolage as we investigate – and practice – inter and transdisciplinary collaboration in a large scale, multi-sited, post pandemic-crisis, project investigating people’s involvement in biodiversity renewal (RENEW). Following funding policy shifts, the project breaks new transdisciplinary ground in its positioning of NGO professionals as co-investigators, alongside the breadth and depth of non-academic partnerships with multiple research strands. Significantly for STS studies of interdisciplinarity, the project has pushed back against ‘subordination-service’ modes of collaboration by involving social science and humanities scholars with a shared research agenda, including an embedded STS team of social scientists and historians investigating collaborative experiences in past and present. RENEW is extravagantly ‘multi-sited’, taking place across multiple university campuses and partner offices, field sites, and, via distance working, the homes of at least 60 people. This creates a multiplicity of physical, virtual, placed and unplaced ‘fieldsites’ to which established modes of embedded STS (lone researcher/lab ethnography) are manifestly unsuited. We have therefore combined virtual and in-person participant observation, work shadowing, diary-ing, semi-structured interviewing, participant led, longer oral history interviewing, and creative workshops. This approach is enabling us to document - as participants – existing research practices, while also convening spaces enabling active reflections on collaboration and interdisciplinarity. Alongside the logistical, relational, methodological and data challenges, we will discuss the new insights this approach is creating - into understanding wider collaborative practices, as well as into our own practice as we work together to actively shape the trajectories of RENEW.

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Short abstract:

This paper seeks to deepen our comprehension of Lab in the Field Experiments (LFEs) by examining the practices of experimentalists in Colombia, using semi-structured interviews. The analysis is framed within Jasanoff's interpretative concept of the co-production of knowledge.

Long abstract:

This paper aims to extend the understanding of lab in the field experiments (LFEs) through the study of the practices –based on semi-structured interviews– of experimentalists who have worked in Colombia. LFEs constitute a hybrid methodology that combines elements from laboratory and field experiments. From the laboratory, LFEs inherit laboratory-based games and controlled settings where participants are outside their everyday decision-making environments. Conversely, the field dimension involves the social and individual characteristics of the population that participates in the experiment (Favereau, 2021). This essay analyses the movement of lab-in-the-field experimentalists toward the field, using Jasanoff's interpretative framework of co-production of knowledge.

The Colombian case was chosen because the Colombian researcher Juan Camilo Cárdenas is one of the three pioneers (along with A. Barr and J. Henrich) in the use of LFEs and has carried out a wide variety of experiments in Colombia since the 1990s. Additionally, there is a vibrant community of lab-in-the-field experimentalists who are scattered in different universities and fields.

My analysis focuses on two key elements of LFEs which are encompassed under the concept of co-production of knowledge: the application of qualitative methods as a platform for mutual learning between researchers and participants and the role of interdisciplinarity. Drawing on Nagatsu (2021) and Jasanoff (2004), I argue that LFEs in Colombia reveal a double interplay within LFEs in Colombia: one between subjects and experimentalists, and another between experimental economists and researchers of diverse disciplines.

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Short abstract:

We present findings from a process of Formative Accompanying Research in a Horizon Europe project, reflecting on factors shaping scientific collaboration in project-based research. We highlight that fostering interdisciplinarity through funding requires considering researchers' diverse environments.

Long abstract:

The support for interdisciplinary research has been growing within the Horizon Europe funding scheme of the European Commission, particularly for climate and biodiversity research. Calls for Research and Innovation Actions, and Capacity Support Actions include the criteria to bring together researchers and actors from diverse disciplines. The program recognizes that many of the challenges faced by society today are complex and multifaceted, requiring collaboration across disciplines, including social scientists and humanities researchers working alongside STEM researchers. However, in such an environment, barriers between epistemic communities emerge, with impacts to the research and researchers.

In this paper, we present findings from a process of Formative Accompanying Research (FAR) within a Horizon Europe-funded project that aims to support the representation of social sciences and humanities within climate, energy and mobility research. FAR includes the evaluation of the outcomes and the processes of the experimental epistemic bridgings occurring within the project. We aim to identify the opportunities and barriers that emerge during interdisciplinary collaboration within the project.

Our findings suggest that factors such as time, development of soft skills, and clarification of expectations are all important components that shape scientific collaboration. We reflect on how these factors can and can’t be created through project-based research, particularly against a backdrop of neoliberal academia. We highlight that fostering interdisciplinarity through funding needs greater attention to the differences in research environments that researchers are embedded within. We consider the implications for creating the knowledge needed for societal transformations.

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Short abstract:

What happens when Janus-headed, inter-, and trans-disciplinary art-based “projects”, intersect with national, and local authority, climate action strategies? What can the messy entanglements of making such things, tell us about the efforts required for place-based transformation?

Long abstract:

In 2022, studio repair acts, was established in the midland’s county of Westmeath, Ireland as a means through which to foster more restorative approaches to material cultures and our landscapes. Taking a situated and arts-based approach, this paper reflects on the first year of the programme. Contextualised within languages of critical making, design justice and just transformations to sustainability, the localised nuances of what it means to really do and make work, that seeks to transmute material arrangements and the affective relations that often sustain such practice, is mapped against the funding and evaluation mechanisms that to date have shaped the programme. Highlighted by examples of making and doing, that bring together desk-based research, archival work, and creative practices, including the formation and delivery of community workshops, installation, exhibition, image, video, and documentary-based art works. Concluding points, reflecting on how the nature of multi-layered, Janus-headed, inter-, and trans-disciplinary art-based “projects”, can intersect and problematise national, and local authority, climate action strategies, while also providing alternatives to other ways of making things happen.

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Short abstract:

For the last ten years, the Frugal Innovation Hub has helped organizations that operate in low-resource areas embrace technology. Our paper will discuss our frugal innovation approach and the social and economic aspects considered in the design, development, and deployment of our applications.

Long abstract:

Located in Silicon Valley, California, Santa Clara University's Frugal Innovation Hub (FIH) has dedicated over a decade to digital transformation by involving computer engineering and social science students in projects that enable organizations operating in low-resource areas worldwide to embrace technology. Despite the influence of local tech giants, such as Apple and Google, a key lesson from our experience is that cutting-edge technology alone is often not sufficient to tackle the complex social and economic challenges faced by low-resource communities.

FIH employs a unique approach that integrates non-technical factors—such as the social imaginaries, demographics, and cultural symbolisms of communities—with the technical aspects of application development. This strategy is deeply rooted in the principles of frugal innovation, and these components are crucial for the genuine and impactful contributions we aim to make when addressing the needs of our beneficiaries, which include both mission-driven organizations and the communities they serve.

This paper will discuss the crucial socioeconomic considerations that must be addressed in the design, development, deployment, and local adoption of web and mobile applications developed for low-resource areas. Drawing on our extensive experience, we will explore the challenges encountered, propose solutions, and illustrate how the frugal innovation framework has been instrumental in navigating these challenges.

Our insights are particularly valuable for universities and mission-driven organizations that are working on interdisciplinary digital transformation projects. By sharing our experiences and the lessons we have learned, we aim to help them develop solutions that will expand the scope and impact of their community outreach.