By Stephanie Moser, Martina Schäfer, Emilia Nagy, Oskar Marg, and Michael Kreß-Ludwig
Source: Stephanie Moser, 2024
In response to the urgent ecological and social challenges of our time, transdisciplinary and transformative research (TTR) approaches aim not only to generate scientific knowledge, but also to drive societal change. They do this by involving social actors in the co-production of knowledge and thus providing impetus for tackling complex social problems. While the potential of TTR to promote societal impact is broadly acknowledged, the understanding of how societal impact can be initiated and supported is so far rather limited.
In an exchange between research groups from the Center Technoloy and Society (ZTG) at Technische Universtität Berlin, ISOE-Institute for Social-Ecological Research (Frankfurt) and the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of the University of Bern, which was supported by a Fellowship from the tdAcademy, we jointly explored the concept of ‘impact pathways’. At a workshop at the Global Alliance for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity (ITD) conference in Utrecht in November 2024 (see Schäfer et al., 2024), we reflected on our findings with around 30 participants.
Different existing concepts of impact pathways
In line with ‘Theory of Change’ thinking, we understand impact pathways as assumptions about stages (‘stepping stones’) on the way to possible planned, hoped for or targeted societal impacts in TTR, as well as about the (temporal) relationships between project activities and outputs and short, medium and long-term impacts.
There are currently only a few and very different approaches to conceptualising impact pathways for transdisciplinary and transformative sustainability research. We have compared the following three approaches, which we helped to develop as co-authors:
- Impact pathways for transdisciplinary (td) research on sustainable urban transformation (Kreß-Ludwig et al., 2024)
- Impact pathways for td research in real-world laboratories for sustainability and innovation research (Nagy et al., 2023)
- Impact pathways in td research on sustainable development including experiences from activities in the Global South (Schneider et al., 2019)
The three approaches were developed in different research contexts and based on experiences from different types of projects. They therefore have different structures and elements and are suitable for different purposes.
Schneider et al. (2019) propose three pathways based on three different impact mechanisms: first, impact through the co-production and dissemination of knowledge; second, impact through the creation of an environment that enables social learning; and third, impact through the development of competences for transformative leadership among the partners involved.
Kreß-Ludwig et al. (2024) describe three impact pathways that emphasise that similar elements can occur in different sequences of direct and indirect impacts. Impact pathway 1 starts with social learning and networking, which leads to physical changes (e.g. in infrastructure or green spaces) and/or behavioural changes via changes in urban governance. Impact pathway 2 starts with experimental modifications of physical structures (such as the temporary transformation of a street space), which lead to changes in behavioural patterns and social networks and thus to learning effects, which in turn promote changes in infrastructure and urban governance. Impact pathway 3 begins with learning and networking processes within urban administration and politics, which lead to changes in urban governance, such as the development of innovative and participatory urban planning tools, which ultimately lead to changes in urban infrastructures that promote a change in behaviour.
Nagy et al. (2023) describe a comprehensive and detailed pathway for transdisciplinary experiments in real-world laboratories and distinguish not only between project phases, but also between impacts of different scales as well as prerequisites, conditions and success factors. The description is therefore very detailed and makes a more explicit link to typologies of societal impacts than the other two approaches.
Benefits of a better understanding of impact pathways
In our experience, a deeper understanding of the impact pathways underlying different societal impacts in TD projects in general and transformative formats in particular has several promising benefits:
-
First, it supports the joint conceptualisation and planning of projects and activities in terms of developing a shared Theory of Change.
- Second, reflecting on the underlying impact pathways facilitates continuous reflective learning and adaptive management during implementation in order to effectively foster the potential for societal impact.
- Third, the definition of impact pathways supports the evaluation of projects and activities.
Future directions for the development of the concept
The joint comparison of the three approaches and their discussion with the workshop participants revealed various knowledge gaps and ambiguities that open up directions for future further development of the concept of ‚impact pathways‘:
First, there is a trade-off between a concrete, simple and intuitive representation of impact pathways (as in Schneider et al., 2019, or Kreß-Ludwig et al., 2024) and a detailed representation that does justice to the complexity of the processes (as in Nagy et al., 2023). For example, the simplified representation ignores the complexity of the relationships between the pathways, suggests an unjustified linearity and leaves the specific content of the individual stepping stones open, which makes them more abstract and therefore - without further information - less easy to understand. At the same time, the underlying impact mechanisms are easier to grasp than in a detailed presentation, and there is room for adapting it for specific projects and applications. A possible future solution could be to propose elements that can serve as a basis for the design of specific impact pathways depending on the project and context instead of pre-defined impact pathways.
Second, it is not only the impact pathways that are of interest, but also the underlying contextual preconditions and procedural conditions for success as well as possible pitfalls along the way. In other words, more answers should be found to the question of how successful progress along the impact pathways can be actively promoted.
Third, the discussions showed that there exist additional impact mechanisms that could also be transferred in additional impact pathways. It also became clear that the impact pathways only theoretically exist in isolation. In practice, they occur in combinations and interaction as projects pursue several approaches simultaneously to generate societal impact. The reflection and integration of findings from other projects could provide further insights here.
Fourth, the question arises as to which extent the proposed impact pathways are really relevant for the promotion of long-term societal impacts. Answering this question requires long-term monitoring of further projects beyond their duration and clarification of how societal impact can be operationalized, observed and measured.
Finally, the discussed approaches neglect the role and positioning of the researchers involved. This should be emphasised more explicitly in future work.
We are convinced that reflecting on impact pathways sharpens our understand on how TTR can strive for societal impact more effectively. Feedback from the workshop participants confirmed that impact pathways are seen as a useful tool for planning projects with a long-term perspective and visualizing societal project impacts. Describing and reflecting on impact pathways from additional projects and programmes could help to advance the concept in terms of the open questions described above. The exchange and workshop as part of the tdAcademy Fellowship made it possible to start thinking about this.
Literature
Kreß-Ludwig, M., Marg, O., Schneider, R., & Lux, A. (2024). Lessons from transdisciplinary urban research to promote sustainability transformation in real-world labs: Categories, pathways, and key principles for generating societal impact. GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society, 33(1), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.33.S1.3
Schäfer, M., Nagy, E., Marg, O., Kreß-Ludwig, M., & Moser, S. (2024). Fostering effectiveness of transdisciplinary research by reflecting possible impact pathways. Workshop at the itd24 Conference from November 4-8 in Utrecht, Netherlands.
Nagy, E., Schäfer, M., & Roth, C. (2023). Innovative Ideen aus dem ländlichen Raum. Barnim & Uckermark im Wandel. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10572383
Schneider, F., Giger, M., Harari, N., Moser, S., Oberlack, C., Providoli, I., Schmid, L., Tribaldos, T., & Zimmermann, A. (2019). Transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge and sustainability transformations: Three generic mechanisms of impact generation. Environmental Science & Policy, 102, 26–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.08.017