Formative evaluation of transdisciplinary research for systematic impact orientation in real-world laboratories

Abstract

There are few approaches to evaluating the societal impact of transdisciplinary research that assess and promote impact orientation while the project is still running. In this Design Report, we present a framework for designing and conducting accompanying formative evaluation of impact-oriented transdisciplinary research in real-world laboratories. Examples from two research projects from the fields of biodiversity management and consumer logistics in rural regions illustrate the application of our evaluation design.Scientific literature offers a variety of endeavors to conceptualize and assess societal effects of research. However, it lacks approaches on how to foster impact orientation and evaluate the effectiveness of transdisciplinary research and real-world laboratories. In this report, we present a framework for designing and conducting project-accompanying formative evaluation for impact-oriented monitoring of research processes, and for systematically recording their effects. We illustrate the application of our evaluation design with examples from two different real-world laboratories that we have been monitoring as evaluators for two years. We discuss the challenges in categorizing outputs and effects and in clarifying their significance for project success. We also address the limitations of our approach with respect to data quality and feasibility of data collection. Formative evaluation is a challenging task for all project participants. It requires adequate resources that must be considered during project planning.