https://designingsocialimpact.space Designing For Social Impact Fri, 21 Apr 2023 04:54:47 +0000 https://designingsocialimpact.space en https://designingsocialimpact.space/Principles Tue, 18 Apr 2023 02:40:56 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Principles Research Principles Designing for social impact calls for an engagement-oriented, prototypical, critical research practice. This is a values-based approach grounded in responsible research: from initial encounters with community, to ethical and enduring partnerships, to critical consideration of the un/intended outcomes of the research interventions over time. Many of us are motivated to undertake research that leads to responsible, positive, sustained long-term outcomes for people and the planet. Yet we see that as the research context shifts, so should our research practices. Drawing on values and practices from design and ethnography, braided with insights from transformative learning, the principles below propose a new kind of research rigour. Shifting our worldviews on research impact surfaces new questions and asks us to resist some social norms, internalised beliefs and habituated practices we have learned to default to. Research integrity here lies not with evidencing impact for its own sake, but understanding how — with care for people and respect for the planet — we might design and undertake our research responsibly for social change. 8 Practice Principles&nbsp; Bring Integrity: Be Inquisitive Assumptions are interrogated through prototypical thinking. This helps resist the impulse to predetermine everything from the outset and is more about asking, “what if…” Deepen Connections: Be Respectful Learning comes from plural perspectives and by making space for different, oftentimes contradictory worldviews. Being respectful of difference asks us to resist the impulse to act transactionally and instead commit to reciprocal exchanges that are enduring and mutually beneficial. Ensure Relevance: Be Humble Research outputs are informed by lived experience and prospective research outcomes align with what is needed. This is about resisting the privileging of one kind of knowing (usually academic) and more about listening and responding to all available expertise. Seek Equity: Be Critical Make unconscious bias and systemic inequities clear by always critically reflecting on the partial perspective that academic expertise brings. We resist defaulting to dominant social norms about official ‘knowledge’ by reckoning with our positions and power as researchers. Privilege Context: Be Adaptive Learning happens through emplaced and embodied knowing informed by regular engagement and iterative interventions. This is a call to resist working in the abstract and instead to be responsive to the on-the-ground situated context. Observe Patterns: Be Rigorous Recognise living systems as interconnected and dynamic by making the patterns and interdependencies visible. Resist simplifying entanglements and instead be mindful of the unintended consequences. Embrace Uncertainty: Be Speculative The act of co-creating futures invites stepping into a space of uncertainty. The liberatory potential of attending to ideas as they emerge can illuminate the constraining structures of the present and invite speculation about alternate futures. By resisting a default reliance on what is easily quantified, we can access multiple ways of knowing to imagine new possibilities. Take Action: Be Considerate Know that small place-based interventions can reveal over-sized insights, leading to an understanding of what will stick, what is needed, what needs refining. Resist critiquing or analysing from the sidelines and take considered risks through learning from early wins and failed experiments in context. https://designingsocialimpact.space/Background Mon, 17 Apr 2023 09:54:47 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Background Background The turn toward social impact is a testament to the urgent need for research-informed responses to global challenges. Transdisciplinary teams working on multi-sectoral projects are crucial to drive responsible research and substantive change. This project is not for the researcher interested in working as they have always done by just gathering more evidence and telling a better narrative. This website is for the person motivated to explore what shifts in research practice are necessary to meet the challenge of impact. Early in our research it was evident that designing for social impact is context-specific, so pathways to impact need to be bespoke. We observed the limiting world that an instrumental focus on evidencing impact could lead to, and the agential world that a purpose-led focus could inspire. We learned that there can be no formulaic answers but we can ask better questions. Our research began with a project, funded by the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University, to develop a transformative learning program that would support academic researchers invested in amplifying the potential impact of their research. To do so, we convened participatory workshops and follow-up&nbsp; interviews with academic staff at Monash, co-designed with the University’s professional and academic staff, plus secondary research into the literature on research and design impact. The subsequent Impact by Design: a field guide for academic researchers curious about impact, explored the new models, reflexive questions and creative ways to reframe academic research practice. Our focus on a shift in practice purposefully resists the reduction of research impact in the academy to how it is evidenced and incentivised. We live in a world where academic performance is oftentimes made sense of through quantifying performance, and in that world people will focus on metrics. But we also live in a world where researchers are driven to engage with complex global challenges, and in that world people are intrinsically motivated by a sense of purpose. These are opposing worlds that ask different questions of impact. In the KPI world, people ask what counts as impact. In the mission-driven world, people question what they can do to amplify impact. One focuses on how to account for change, the other on how to be accountable for change. This guide is for those researchers who want to be accountable. Researchers who want to undertake research that increases the chance of our labour leading to positive social, environmental, cultural, economic, technological, and geo-political change. ︎︎&nbsp;Download the Fieldguide The Team This is a transdisciplinary project with collaborations that ebb and flow. The research was stronger because we recognised our research practices — as ethnographers, designers, methodologists, educators and policy-makers — deeply informed our approaches and how we positioned ourselves. As a co-design researcher, Professor Lisa Grocott brings to the collaboration an understanding of research engagement and translation. Lisa’s contribution is further shaped by her research into transformative shiftwork and her Indigenous perspective informed by being Māori (Ngati Kahugnunu). Associate Professor Shanti Sumartojo’s expertise in human geography and design ethnography illuminates the context of research impact as place-based and grounded in lived experience. Wade Kelly, Monash’s Director of Research Excellence and Impact, contributed his vast knowledge of impact, to the cultural project of developing impact literacy across the academic sector. For the initial Impact by Design project, Professor Michael Mintrom’s expertise in public policy helped connect research impact to the work of brokering strategic partnerships and effective policy development. For the website project our long-standing creative collaborator Professor Stacy Holman Jones brings her practice expertise to the research of transforming lives, relationships, ways of living, and communities. Stuart Geddes brought a creative orientation to the design of the workshop materials and the field guide, while Kate Barlock designed this shifting website. We are also grateful to Myf Doughty and Alexandra Haendel for the support they brought to the workshops. Acknowledgements The interdisciplinary research team recognise that their disciplinary expertise and practice knowing were further informed by the experiences and opinions shared by the business and economic researchers who participated in the Pathways to Impact and Impact by Design workshops and the follow up interviews. Similarly, the university research managers, leaders and academic staff who have participated in subsequent workshops continue to inform the evolution of this work. We are grateful for their time, insights and new perspectives. We acknowledge the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nations on whose land we gathered, debated, designed and imagined alternate research practices futures. We recognise that to pay respect to First Nations Elders past and present, we are called to learn how Indigenous ways of knowing, doing and being can inform how we make sense of research impact. Specifically, this compels us to consider sites of research as always in relation to Country, as situated within complex knowledge systems and connected in time and place, to future and past generations. We are grateful for the initial research contract that seeded this line of inquiry. We acknowledge the funding from the Faculty of Business and Economics at Monash University, commissioned by the Distinguished Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Development, Charmine Hartel. <img alt="Creative Commons Licence" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/80x15.png"> This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License https://designingsocialimpact.space/Act-More-Practice-Shiftwork-Activites Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:18:58 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Act-More-Practice-Shiftwork-Activites Shiftwork: A Basic Plan You can put these activities to use to develop a research practice that deepens social impact. Resist believing that reading will lead to a change in practice. It will not. For practices to be transformed one needs more than a cognitive unsettling. What is required is sustained curiosity and action as you imagine, rehearse and develop new research activities and processes. First focus on your intrinsic motivation to turn toward impact. Be clear about why you want to do this beyond any institutional or external motivation. More than anything, a clear sense of purpose will carry you as you adapt and refine your practice. See the Finding Purpose activity. Use the shifts identified in Questioning Practice as an inventory of what the implications for your practice might be. Some shifts will seem easier than others, for example, adopting plural perspectives on data might be easier for an ethnographer than a quantitative researcher. Spend more time with the changes that are challenging, and explore what you will need to let go of. Explore the research metaphors in Responsible Impact to interrogate what needs to be examined more critically. The next move is a creative one. If done properly it will also be galvanising. Imagine years from now the research practice you hope to have or the research culture you hope your institution could have. Then colour this scenario with detail, share it with peers, and expand the vision together. Imagine the partners you got to work with and the stories of impact you heard on the journey. Your envisaged future might focus on: the beneficiaries’ stories, the depth of long term interdisciplinary collaborations, the opportunity to stay connected to a community over decades, or the scholarly contribution to your discipline. Be sure to consider what you are not interested in, and what future you shut down. This picture of your future self or future institution is all useful information for grounding you in the present, clarifying what skills you want to build and why this matters to you. As a researcher, try The Tomorrow Party or as an institution, explore In a World Where… As you begin the process of shifting your practice, consider the commitments you are making to yourself, collaborators and/or beneficiaries. Reflect on the Research Principles you hold dear. Make explicit what you will try first. Talk with your supervisor or colleague about one thing you will do, whether that is to always begin with a stakeholder analysis map or add milestones to a project to test some assumptions. Make sure the first move is not too ambitious. A change that feels manageable and yet meaningful is the strongest starting point. The ideas here can be adapted for specific contexts: professional learning as a department, mission-defining as a lab or impact planning for an interdisciplinary project team. The diagrams, the activities, the questions and the shiftwork lenses can all be adapted for a structured workshop or an informal discussion. The core invitation is to be more inquisitive than defensive, and to reflect on what habits, routines, values you might have to let go of to make space for new ways of collaborating, engaging and researching to evolve. https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activities-Main Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:07:32 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activities-Main Activities A commitment to making change in the world begins with and depends on the change we ask of ourselves. If we want to increase the chance of our labour leading to positive social, environmental, cultural, economic, technological and geopolitical change we can begin by looking at how and why we do what we do. More inquisitive than instructional, these activities explore the questions that the social, contextualised, collaborative, systems orientation of impact raises. They aim to seed a change to research impact by making it possible to envisage ‘new normal’ research practices and motivations. Research on transformative learning says that we must interrogate the scripts that shape how we think and act, and then rewrite those scripts so that new ways of practicing can emerge. The hands-on activities, creative resources and bespoke training respect that any cognitive unsettling (like reading this site) will not, on its own, lead to new research outcomes.These creative activities support the conceptual reframing and practical unlearning critical to adapting and evolving a research practice. https://designingsocialimpact.space/Training Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:07:46 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Training Training We co-create and develop design workshops focussed on supporting participants in finding their purpose, unlearning limiting habits and envisaging new ways to work. Our sessions range from half-day workshops to 3-day intensives. <img width="1821" height="1274" width_o="1821" height_o="1274" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0064148a75dd537c1c63eeeb26b0a6691d9f2b0969c8194714fb52a7faf5b6a4/Training.png" data-mid="176132073" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/0064148a75dd537c1c63eeeb26b0a6691d9f2b0969c8194714fb52a7faf5b6a4/Training.png" /> We are committed to tailoring workshops to meet the context and the participants. We have designed transformative encounters for university leadership, research labs and project teams, faculties or departments. Please get in touch if you want to discuss how a research impact workshop might support your practice. ︎ CONTACT https://designingsocialimpact.space/Impact-Card-Deck Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:07:43 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Impact-Card-Deck Impact Card Deck This deck of 72 cards teases out many dimensions of a research practice related to impact. They call into question the timescale researchers play with (from months to centuries), explore the values attached to research excellence (from reach to originality), and generate ideas of different translation artefacts or novel research outputs. There is no one way to use the cards. Download a set and see how they might help shift your practice. We use them in department workshops to create individual research plans, in interdisciplinary teams to surface different values and expertise, in project teams to identify what is missing, or simply to get us thinking about impact before we write grants. <img width="1834" height="1276" width_o="1834" height_o="1276" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/e8ea28371f51a5d7ee5b45d316a24284660d3d5b6cd9849a2bd00e411df30f95/Impact-Deck.png" data-mid="176132088" border="0" data-scale="99" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/e8ea28371f51a5d7ee5b45d316a24284660d3d5b6cd9849a2bd00e411df30f95/Impact-Deck.png" /> ︎Pro tip 1: It can be paralysing to work with all the cards at once. We have found that identifying a couple of categories, like outcomes and outputs, or engagement and translation, can be a more productive way to get started. ︎Pro tip 2: The most interesting conversations come from letting the metaphoric images deepen your questioning. For example, how does the building with scaffolding help us think through different layers of government, or what does the mix tape image tell us about whose voices get heard? https://designingsocialimpact.space/Practice-Shiftwork-Activities Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:07:41 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Practice-Shiftwork-Activities Practice Shiftwork Activities We cannot make the changes we want to see in the system without changing how we act in that system. We cannot disentangle the external system shifts required to create more equitable and sustainable futures from the internal intrapersonal shifts required to do more just and ethical research. These shifts are mutually interdependent. You can put these activities to use to develop a research practice that deepens social impact. Resist believing that reading will lead to a change in practice. It will not. For practices to be transformed one needs more than a cognitive unsettling. What is required is sustained curiosity and action as you imagine, rehearse and develop new research activities and processes. For a loose plan for how to get started,&nbsp;click here. https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-Finding-Purpose Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:15:05 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-Finding-Purpose Finding Purpose: Intrinsic Motivation Cards This activity helps researchers, individually or in teams, to put aside the institutional and extrinsic calls to do research impact and focus on what personally motivates you in this space. Informed by evidence-based research on the value of intrinsic motivation this diagnostic activity anchors why we do what we do, to ground the move to impact in a sense of purpose, rather than a new strategic plan. ︎ Instructions ︎ Print Deck Resources ︎ Screen Resources https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-In-A-World Fri, 21 Apr 2023 04:48:54 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-In-A-World In a World Where… Future Impact Scenarios This critical, discursive activity introduces five scenarios around how research impact might evolve in higher education. Working with speculative thinking and engaging with people’s hopes and fears, the future-focused activity scaffolds ways to consider how to shape the system you want while also introducing key impact concepts. ︎ Instructions&nbsp; &nbsp; ︎ Resources https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-Responsible-Impact Fri, 21 Apr 2023 04:54:47 +0000 Designing For Social Impact https://designingsocialimpact.space/Activity-Responsible-Impact Responsible Impact: Metaphoric Inquiry This creative, inquisitive activity takes core impact concepts like engagement, translation and stakeholders and asks us to get curious about the ethical implications they have for deepening impact. Metaphoric thinking expansively opens up new ways of seeing a situation and questioning assumptions and bias. Working with experiential visual metaphors, this is a good activity for interdisciplinary teams, and can be used at various points across project timelines or to interrogate research activities. ︎ Instructions ︎ Resources