{"id":1106,"date":"2019-01-31T15:48:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T14:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.essi-net.eu\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2019-05-06T14:16:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:16:07","slug":"wise-research-a-holistic-approach-for-transformative-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.essi-net.eu\/?p=1106","title":{"rendered":"Wise research \u2013 a holistic approach for transformative research"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author(s): Ines Omann, Austrian Research Foundation for Development Research Vienna and Sustainable Quality of Life <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the last 40 years, the concept of sustainability has gained importance within different scientific disciplines and as a discipline on its own. It has inspired businesses and governments, who integrated the concept in their visions and decision making. However, besides the good practice of local and regional initiatives or an improvement of one or the other sustainability indicator, not much has improved. On the contrary, #climatechange is accelerating, resource use and material throughput are increasing as are #biodiversity loss. Reasons for the wrong or too slow development are manifold. Is the wrong form of research one of the problems? Do we need to develop more transformative approaches to sustainability research<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I do not think that current forms and results of #sustainability research are wrong. We can see that transdisciplinary and even co-creative approaches including innovative forms and methods such as action research, living labs, real life experiments, transition arenas etc. are increasingly important. This can be traced through the publications based on such forms of research, calls from funding agencies but also the feedback and resonance from (regional) policy makers and civil society who are part of such research projects. These research approaches aim not only to understand, analyse or evaluate #transformations (i.e. transformation \/ transition research) \u2013 they aim for transformative impact. The question that occupies me is: How to make those innovative forms of research even more<\/strong> impactful?<\/em><\/p>\n

About a year ago, I came across the idea of \u201cwise democracy\u201d by Tom Atlee and Martin Rausch from the Co-Intelligence Institute<\/a>. They aim to \u201cenvision and co-create a deeply participatory culture that generates policies and activities that support the long-term quality of life. A wise democracy is a form of participatory self-governance that routinely creates and implements wise guidance in its public affairs.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Wise democracy is based on the impact of collective wisdom and builts on three fundaments: power, participation, and the intelligence and wisdom of process outcomes. These dimensions of democracy are always present in political or governance processes to some degree, and each can be improved.<\/p>\n

I was intrigued by the simplicity and still powerful ideas of those three fundaments and started to wonder what it would mean to transfer the idea of wise democracy to the area of research\u2026<\/p>\n

How could a \u201cwise research\u201d be described?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A wise research is a holistic<\/em> form of research.<\/p>\n

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  1. It integrates different forms of knowledge and intelligence<\/em>, be it lay knowledge based on experiences, emotional and intuitive wisdom (inner wisdom) or cognitive knowledge, be it individual knowledge or knowledge that is held by collectives.<\/li>\n
  2. It is outcome and process oriented and acts in an integrative manner by including diverse actors<\/em> in a participatory and co-creative way.<\/li>\n
  3. And, it is also based on scientific excellence<\/em>, on existing knowledge, but also on the interest to gain new intellectual insights.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In a wise research process all these dimensions should be integrated and applied so that the knowledge used is more comprehensive, integrative and effective. Co-creation uses the collective abilities and skills of everybody involved so that through unfolding everybody\u2019s and the group\u2019s potential, innovative ideas can emerge and the participants are empowered; excellence is allowing for depth and innovation. The following figure shows the three dimensions of \u201cwise research\u201d.<\/p>\n

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    I envision this form of research to help us develop a co-creative and deeply participatory culture for the creation of knowledge and impacts that support a good life for all now and in future.<\/p>\n

    Why do I think that the results have a higher efficacy than current forms of research do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It might allow to better address wicked societal problems by (1) working with the existing disagreements or tensions between different stakeholders through the inclusive participatory process that explicitly welcomes different forms of knowledge but also emotions, belief systems or values; by (2) understanding a problem from diverse viewpoints (different forms of knowledge) and thus get a more comprehensive view; and by (3) having impact on the actors involved through first, second and third order learning, which might enable them to change their awareness, attitudes and eventually behaviour or decisions they take (as leaders) into a more sustainable way. As the researchers themselves are strongly engaged, they will also experience learning not only intellectually but also emotionally. (4) The possibility to better address wicked societal problems by finding deeper causes and allowing for exploration of existing tensions; providing a holistic approach to the interaction between individuals, society and science might lead to more meaningful results.<\/p>\n

    How does it work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Well, there is certainly not the ONE way to undertake wise research. However, some guiding principles might support the emergence of holistic knowledge and scientific excellence within co-creative integrative processes.<\/p>\n