138 - Walking The Talk: Evaluating Transdisciplinary Projects and Elevating Community Voices for Systems Change

Abstract Information: Transdisciplinary research and extension projects have the potential to produce greater real-world impacts than traditional research that is siloed into academic disciplines. There has been increased investment by some federal funding agencies in transdisciplinary research projects that bring a systems lens to their work. Past experience and a growing body of literature point to the critical nature of building genuine and robust relationships with relevant communities that researchers, educators and Extension professionals seek to change. There are unfortunately numerous examples of researchers developing extractive relationships with underserved or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities–such as by conducting research on a community that only results in academic outputs and doesn’t benefit the communities which provided data. This type of research ultimately serves to maintain or worsen existing inequities. Evaluators can leverage their unique role and power to facilitate more effective transdisciplinary projects–as they strive to transform systems and communities. The organizers of this session will bring their experience as evaluators on several large (in terms of number of people, institutions and scope) transdisciplinary projects focused on improving sustainability across a range of U.S. agricultural and natural resources sectors, and share some examples of successes and challenges in efforts to engage with and benefit diverse communities in their work. This Birds of a feather discussion will focus on the following questions:
1) What examples have you encountered of effective community engagement by projects taking a systems and/or transdisciplinary approach to their research/education and or extension?
2) a) What challenges to engaging diverse community voices have emerged on projects you have evaluated or worked with? b) Did these challenges result in ineffective or limited collaboration with relevant communities? Or were they addressed/overcome?
3) How can transdisciplinary project teams leverage their diverse skills, expertise, and social connections to more effectively work with diverse communities? Are they better positioned to do so than discipline specific research/extension projects?
4) How can evaluation and evaluators help project to better reach underserved communities and elevate unheard voices to make progress towards more equitable (food and agricultural) systems?

We certainly don’t have all the answers, and look forward to learning with and from those who join this Birds of a feather discussion.