Johns Hopkins- and Oxford-trained Scholar Offers Evaluation Criteria for Transdisciplinary Projects

NEW YORK - Nov. 19, 2024 - PRLog -- Effective evaluation criteria can increase the impact of the billions invested into research, education, and training every year.

For researchers looking to advance sustainable development, transdisciplinary research (TDR) holds promise. TDR is "when researchers work jointly with non-academic stakeholders across disciplinary boundaries towards a problem-solving, common-good oriented, mutual-learning, and comprehensive approach to complex sustainable development problems" (Cheung 2024).

Building on the works of the OECD (1982), Pohl (2011), Belcher et al. (2016), and Willetts and Mitchell (2017), Cheung presents a set of evaluation criteria for transdisciplinary research that (a) places a stronger emphasis on transformation knowledge and know-how to support problem-solving, (b) recognizes the value of non-academic outcomes, (c) identifies international law as one of the guides in value discussions, and (d) encourages researchers to fully engage with our complex reality.

Integration and Implementation Insights (i2Insights) has published his evaluation criteria. View here: https://i2insights.org/2024/11/19/evaluating-transdiscipl... The i2Insights contribution has been adapted from Table 1.7 in Cheung's book. We encourage readers to comment and participate in discussions.

"5 Ideas from Global Diplomacy: System-wide Transformation Methods to Close the Compliance Gap and Advance the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals" is an open access preprint with a digital edition available for free online here: https://unbuiltlabs.com/5-ideas-from-global-diplomacy The book has been featured by many leading organizations including the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences and the Boards Impact Forum.

Marvin Cheung is a business executive and a global governance scholar. In addition to chairing the Global Consortium for Systems Research (GCSR), he co-directs the Center for Global Agenda (CGA) and directs the Venture Strategy Group (VSG) at Unbuilt Labs. He is a United Nations Fellow and Expert. He is also a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and Boards Impact Forum. Marvin holds a BFA from the Parsons School of Design, and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He was a Departmental Visiting Student at the University of Oxford.