TERRA SCHOOL 2021 REPORT: ENGAGING ONLINETERRA School
2021 Report:
Engagingonline

March 2021
PARTICIPANTS OF THE SECOND TERRA SCHOOLABOUT THE ORGANIZORSThe 2nd TERRA School
by Yuko Onishi and Rob Kuipers

TERRA School (Transdisciplinarity for Early
careeR Researchers in Asia School) is a shortterm intensive course on transdisciplinary
research in practice, organized by theResearch Institute for Humanity & Nature(RIHN) in collaboration with the Regional
Centre for Future Earth in Asia. It aims tobuild capacity on transdisciplinary research,where researchers and societal stakeholders
work together to address challenges facing
humanity. It is envisioned to raise awarenessof what transdisciplinarity can offer and thechallenges involved in its implementation.
Its second training course was held fromMarch 5th to 19th, 2021. Due to the spread of
COVID19, this year’s school was held entirely
online through various platforms such as
Zoom, Miro, Slack and SpatialChat. The
course featured lectures, workshops andinteractive sessions on theories and practiceof transdisciplinary research. It included
structured learning on tools andmethodologies used in TD (e.g. problem
framing, stakeholder analysis andintegration) and introduction to the varioustransdisciplinary research conducted atRIHN.

A total of 17 participants coming fromdifferent parts of Asia and Pacific attended
the course. Participant’s ages ranged from 35
to 44 years old (average of 38 years old) with
13 female and 4 males. All of them had adoctorate degree with varying degree ofexperiences and currently connected with
universities in their respective countries.
Their fields of expertise were also varied witha good mix of natural and social sciences.

RIHN
RIHN has conducted inter- and trans-disciplinary
research in search of the ideal interaction of humanity
and nature since its foundation in 2001, in addition toacademic research spanning the natural sciences,humanities, and social sciences, while also considering
regional characteristics and historical contexts.

Future Earth Asia Centre
Future Earth is a new research initiative launched in2015, which brings together 24 large global
environmental change research networks.
Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity are key
concepts in Future Earth. RIHN host the Regional Centrefor Future Earth in Asia.

TERRA SCHOOL 2021 REPORT: ENGAGING ONLINE | MARCH 2021

Summary of the program
Day 1: introduction
Prof. Hein Mallee welcomed the participants
and provided a presentation ontransdisciplinarity, Future Earth, andRIHN.Afterword, Dr. Agnes Rampisela gave aplenary lecture on the principles for enabling
TD research. Dr. Rampisela worked as a coleader of RIHN research project on
Integrated Water Resources Management,
where she was the primary investigator for
the Jeneberang watershed project site inSulawesi Island in Indonesia. The lecture
provided tips for practicing TD research, suchas encouraging dialogues with residents.
Based on her research experience, Dr.
Rampisela shared five principles for
successful TD research: research should beaimed at solving real-world problems andshould combine different types of knowledge
by partnering with societal stakeholders;project should promote stakeholder
legitimacy and balance, projects should
encourage stakeholder participation andbenefits (i.e. societal and academic outputs);
projects should facilitate collaborative
actions; and projects should foster projectsustainability (i.e. promote self-initiative
activities by stakeholders and sufficient
support to ensure that projects activities
continue after support from the research
project ends).

Day 2: TD methods
On the second day, Dr. Osamu Kozan
presented a case study about the TropicalPeatland Society project at RIHN for which
he works as the project leader. This projectaddresses the problem of frequent and largescale fires in tropical peatlands in Indonesia.
During the presentation he shared why theproject decided to adopt a transdisciplinary

Workshop 1: Rich picturesapproach and how it has benefitted theproject. For the Peatland project, there were
5 reasons to adopt a TD approach, which
were; to better understand the essence ofthe problems in collaboration with residents;
to carry out long-term grassroots exchange
activities; to analyze and understand boththe scientific mechanisms and the societalcontext; to foster and mediate dialogue
between residents and the government, localgovernments, and companies; and to makerecommendations for international action
based on this experience.
During the workshop part, Dr. Lambino
introduced rich pictures as a tool to explore
wicked problems. Rich pictures are “acompilation of drawings, pictures, symbols,
and text that represent a particular situation
or issue from the viewpoints of the person orpeople who draw them” (Open University).
These drawings of detailed representationsof problematic situations can help tounderstand the complexity of the entire
situation, encourage people to think deeply
about the problem, to organize thoughts,
and to analyze interactions. They can be auseful tool in participatory research process
to encourage discussions and attain sharedunderstandings among stakeholders. During
the workshop, the participants were split into
four break-out groups to create their own
rich pictures. Each group was asked to decide
on a problem to work on and to create a rich
picture about this problem in Miro byincluding relevant stakeholders, key stakes,
their relationships and other importantelements.

Yamauchi (project leader) and Sikopo
Nyambe (researcher) provided apresentation about stakeholder engagementin the Sanitation Value Chain Project atRIHN. They reflected upon their experienceswith engaging local children and youth in the
project at one of their field sites in Zambia.
This was not always an easy process, andthey shared that good collaboration in TD
research particularly requires clear
community benefit, a snowball recruitment
process (i.e. stakeholders being involved in
identifying other stakeholders), andresearcher paying attention to how realities,
priorities, skills, and values are different
among participants.
During the second workshop, Dr. Lambino
introduced stakeholder analysis as a tool toidentify relevant stakeholders to address awicked problem. Stakeholder analysis is an
important step in identifying, analyzing andprioritizing who and how to engage
stakeholders in a TD process. To try thismethod, the participate were divided again
into break-out groups and were tasked tocreate their own stakeholder analysis in Mirobased on the wicked problem that they
worked on in the first workshop.
In the following session, Dr. Yuko Onishi
introduced the Co-creation project, whichaims to compile the lessons learned from theexperiences of implementing/participating inTD projects and to find effective methods forsharing these lessons. She introduced someof the findings of the project and tips toimprove stakeholder participation.

Day 3: sanitation and co-creation

Day 4: meeting with stakeholders

On the third day, RIHN researchers
introduced other TD initiatives at RIHN. TaroOn day 4, TERRA school was joined byresearchers and stakeholders from theWorkshop 2: Stakeholder analysis

Final group presentation

TERRA SCHOOL 2021 REPORT: ENGAGING ONLINE | MARCH 2021
FEAST project at RIHN. During the first part,
Steven Mcgreevy (project leader) and Norie
Tamura (senior researcher) talked about theTD approach of the project. Specifically, theproject works on 1) food system mappingand assessment; 2) patterns of foodconsumption and production as well as foodand agriculture related social practices andtheir socio- cultural meanings; and 3)
participatory foresight methods, in order toenact social change by partnering withstakeholders to envision plausible anddesirable food futures and initiating
experiments and actions such as food policy
and planning, smartphone apps, and games.
The project is active in four countries (Japan,Thailand, China and Bhutan) and works
together with an extensive network of
stakeholders, including academic
institutions, governments, academic
networks, private sector, and civil society. Dr.
Mcgreevy and Tamura reflected on common
challenges for TD research and how they
initiated the TD project in several field sites
in Japan.

In the second half, the TERRA schoolparticipants received the unique opportunity
to also talk with some of the stakeholders in
the FEAST project and to hear about theirexperiences and lessons learned. This year’s
session was joined by Ms. Nishida, Mr. Suzuki
and Mr. Yoshida from the field site in Nagano(Japan). Simultaneous translation wasprovided so that the participants could
converse freely using both English andJapanese.

Day 5: theory of change
On day 5, Dr. Steven Mcgreevy introduced
theory of change (TOC) as a tool to identify
research objectives and pathways for change
in TD research. To demonstrate how a TOC
can be developed, he introduced the TOC
created in the FEAST project and discussed
how it was developed overtime. During theworkshop section, the Terra schoolparticipants were then divided into break-outgroups and were asked to create their own
theory of change in Miro based on theOnline platform for workshops and daily programs

wicked problem that they worked on in thefirst two workshops. Each group developed
2-3 outcomes, taking into account thedifferent stakeholders they identified during
workshop 2, and developed concrete steps
for how to achieve these outcomes.

Day 6: reflection
On the last day, the participants presented
their group work. Each group presented for
10 minutes about the wicked problem theychose, their proposed project, identified
stakeholders, research objectives and theoryof change. The proposals focused on four
wicked problems: peatland restoration inIndonesia, improving ocean quality alongmegacities in the Manila Bay area, creating
holistic solutions for the protection andrehabilitation of mangroves in Malaysia, andaddressing flood issues in Jakarta andJabodetabek mega city to achievecommunity resilience and sustainable urbandevelopment.

TERRA SCHOOL 2021 REPORT: ENGAGING ONLINE | MARCH 2021

Program
Day 1: March 5, Friday
14:00 - 14:40

Terra school kick-off and introductions

14:40 - 15:00

Course overview and expectations check15:00 - 15:20

Talk 1: Why do transdisciplinary research

15:30 - 16:20

Keynote: Enabling transdisciplinary research
Day 2: March 10, Friday

14:05 – 14:40

Case study 1: Solving Indonesia’s large-scale fires

14:40 – 15:40

Workshop 1: Exploring a wicked problem using rich pictures

15:50 – 16:20

Plenary group presentations 1: Rich pictures

14:00 – 14:35

Case study 2: Engaging a youth group in Zambia

14:35 – 15:35

Workshop 2: Stakeholder analysis

15:45 – 16:00

Plenary group presentations 2: Stakeholder analysis

16:00 – 16:25

Talk 2: Lessons Learned from TD projects

Day 3: March 12, Monday

Day 4: March 15, Monday
14:05 – 15:35

Case study 3: FEAST project (lessons from engagement in Nagano, Kameoka, Kyoto)

15:45 – 16:25

Interaction with FEAST project partners
Day 5: March 17, Wednesday

14:10 – 14:40

Talk 3: Theory of change

14:40 – 15:40

Workshop 3: TD project objectives and theory of change

15:50 – 16:20

Virtual “happy hour” with TERRA school alumni
Day 6: March 19, Friday

14:10 – 15:10

Plenary presentations 3: Group presentations TD projects

15:20 – 16:00

Final reflection session

TERRA School 2021 Report: Engaging online
Authors: Yuko Onishi, Rob Kuipers
Publish date: 20 August 2022
Publisher: Co-creation project (no. 14200130), Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
URL: https://cocreationproject.jp/ISBN: 978-4-910834-07-8