Infrastructuring to support multi-discipline, multi-stakeholder research: Co-designing synergy through a systems lens

This paper explores how systems informed collaborative design practice can help multi-discipline, multi-stakeholder research to integrate knowledge and think in aligned ways. Whilst there is growing appreciation for the need to do joined-up complex research and move beyond one-way research processes, there is less consensus on how researchers can practically work together to integrate their skills, expertise, and knowledge. Through working closely with an ongoing research consortium, participatory design approaches were developed that can benefit complex research projects, leading towards better collaboration across disciplines sectors and publics. Learning from interviews with researchers on a large-scale multi-discipline multi-sector consortium, who came from different backgrounds, with varying perspectives and expectations, collaborative design methods were developed to support researchers in taking self-determined steps toward more productive research infrastructures. The consortium aimed to employ systems approaches to help researchers to understand and address complex urban challenges. Taking a starting point in different understandings of systems approaches on the project, the design research was influenced by contemporary approaches to community involvement in the urban planning system. The activities described in this paper sought to build capacity towards a responsive infrastructure of shared connections, interests, and needs, with the overarching aims of supporting future discussions about dynamics, interactions, alignments, and synergies; and making a process contribution to the improved integration of the consortium.