“Ten reflective steps for rendering research societally relevant” is a workshop format of TdLab which we use in teaching and research (Pohl et al., 2017). Students or researchers bring their project to the workshop and reflect and discuss, for instance, (a) whether the knowledge they provide matches the current societal knowledge need; (b) for what reason (e.g. power, interest, expertise) they want to collaborate with specific disciplines and actors of civil society, the public or the private sector; or (c) when in the research process they should involve which disciplines or further societal actors in what form and intensity.

The ten steps workshop usually takes 4-8 hours. Steps 1-4 focus on the knowledge produced, steps 5-9 on disciplines and further societal actors to be involved. Individual thinking alternates with pairwise and plenary discussions as well as theoretical inputs. For the training we will run through all steps in 90 minutes. To manage, we will ask participants to prepare steps 1-2 in advance and skip the theoretical input. The training schedule is as follows (‘ means Minutes):

Welcome and introduction (Moderator, 3’)

Which knowledge to produce

Step 1: Formulate your research question(s) (Prepared individual work, 5’)

Step 2: Formulate the societal problem you want to help solve (Prepared individual work, 5’)

Step 3: Specify the stage of the policy cycle (Individual work, 10’)

Step 4: Clarify the form of knowledge required (short explanation by Moderator, step is left out, 5’)

Discussion (in groups of 2-3, 10’)

Who to involve, why and how

Step 5: Identify relevant disciplines and societal actors (Individual work, 5’)

Step 6: Position disciplines and societal actors in relation to the research question (Individual work, 10’)

Step 7: Carry out an actor constellation (short explanation by Moderator, step is left out, 5’)

Step 8: Clarify disciplines’ and societal actors’ expected contributions (Individual work, 5’)

Step 9: Plan a functional-dynamic interaction (Individual work, 10’)

Reflecting the use of the 10 steps

Step 10: Think about main lessons learned (collecting most important insights, 15’)

Closure and thank (Moderator, 2’)

Learning goal(s): Participants are able

• to decide whether the 10 steps are relevant for their work.

• to use individual steps or all 10 steps to better embed their projects in the broader societal context and to improve the project’s science-practice interfaces.

• (if they are experienced in moderating) to adapt the 10 steps to their own needs and/or to moderate a 10 steps workshop.

Pohl, C., Krütli, P., & Stauffacher, M. (2017). Ten reflective steps for rendering research societally