Research collaboration for societal engagement and social innovation: Guidelines and reflections for best practices

We understand research for societal engagement as research that is societally relevant in the sense that it fosters engagement and collaboration among different social actors. If you are interested in research collaboration with multiple stakeholders from inside and outside the university, this guide will provide you with guidelines to initiate, consolidate, and finalize collaborations, while addressing central dilemmas that transdisciplinary collaborators might meet along the way.
These guidelines offer a way to engage with such dilemmas, aware that not all dilemmas can always be solved, as they emerge at individual, inter-subjective or
partnership level, often structured by institutional and organisational actions or logics that go beyond a particular collaborative project. While we have
institutionalized and well documented procedures and rules for ethical and responsible conduct of research and transdisciplinary collaborations, these
guidelines address a perspective that is embedded in local needs and practices, and which takes individual situatedness and inter-subjective relations into account. This guide invites general reflection on aspects related to conducting research with the aim of strengthening and upscaling societal engagement and social innovation. It offers an explorative approach to solution finding in situations of collaboration, inspired by core research responsibility dimensions (RRI –
responsible research and innovation) like inclusion, reflexivity, transparency, anticipation and responsiveness and considerations of ethics of care. It thus links
bottom-up and social innovation with RRI and interrelational thinking.