The agile route to impactful research
Do you also feel that research projects sometimes get bogged down in rigid, inflexible plans? In a rapidly changing and complex world, the needs of policymakers and stakeholders can shift quickly. Examples include new local or international circumstances, new insights provided by research, different political priorities, and so on. A plan that seemed perfect a few months ago may already be outdated by the time implementation begins.
In our search for alternatives to make research projects more agile and better aligned with the needs and realities of end users, we came across the agile principles.
Agile working – which originated in the IT sector but is now used in many sectors – revolves around flexibility, collaboration and learning by doing. Teams do not rigidly adhere to a single, defined plan, but work in small steps and regularly share results with end users, such as policymakers. This makes it easier to make quick adjustments based on new insights or changing priorities. The result? Research that is more relevant in practice, leading to faster, real-world impacts on the climate and nature restoration.
It may sound like a nice story, but how does it work in practice? We applied the principle in a large European research project on nature-based solutions: INTERLACE.
It was not an easy task, because working agile requires a change in mindset and does not happen overnight. But where there's a will, there's a way. That's why we are happy to share our insights in this guide: The Agile Research Guide.
Dieter Mortelmans, Julie Callebaut