Research funding programmes aiming for societal transformations: Ten key stages

Abstract

Societal issues such as poverty, water scarcity, and food insecurity make it more important than ever for science to produce knowledge that is relevant to address serious challenges on the ground. A growing number of research funding programmes emphasize the need for transdisciplinary (TD) co-production of knowledge as one way of making research part of needed societal transformations. Despite this positive trend, very few studies have focused in particular on how research funding programmes themselves could enhance the implementation of TD research. To address this gap, we explored processes and structures of TD research funding programmes, and created a generic model that explicitly shows the key stages relevant to the enhancement of TD research. Based on a discussion of these key stages with representatives of four TD research funding programmes we co-produced design recommendations that offer guidance for implementation of future programmes.