TERRA SCHOOL 2022 REPORT: ASIA MEETS AFRICATERRA School
2022 Report:Asia meets
AfricaFebruary 2022
ONLINE MIRO PLATFORM FOR THE THIRD TERRA SCHOOLABOUT THE ORGANIZORSThe 3rd TERRA Schoolby 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 Future Earth
Global Secretariat Hub Japan. It aims to build
capacity on transdisciplinary research, whereresearchers 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 third training course was held fromFebruary 16th to March 4th, 2022. Following
from the previous year, due again to thespread of COVID19, this year’s school washeld entirely online through various
platforms such as Zoom, Miro, andSpatialChat. The course featured lectures,workshops and interactive sessions on
theories and practice of transdisciplinary
research. It included structured learning on
tools and methodologies used in TD (e.g.
problem framing, stakeholder analysis andtheory of change) and introduction to thevarious transdisciplinary research conducted
at RIHN.

A total of 16 participants coming fromdifferent parts of Asia (Malaysia, Taiwan,Indonesia, Mongolia, Thailand, China, andIndia) attended the course. The participants
hold a good mix of research backgrounds
such as Engineering, Chemistry, Geology,Anthropology, Politics, and Economics.
Participant’s ages ranged from 30 to 44 years
old with 12 female and 4 males. All of themhad a doctorate degree with varying degreeof experiences and currently connected withuniversities 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
Future Earth is a global research network launched in2015, which brings together 27 global research networks
focusing on environmental issues and sustainability.
Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity are key
concepts in Future Earth. The secretariat of Future Earthis hosted by 9 different countries, one of which is Japanand supported by RIHN.

Terra School 2022 Organising team

TERRA SCHOOL 2022 REPORT: ASIA MEETS AFRICA | FEBRUARY 2022

Summary of the program
Day 1: introduction
Dr. Juichi Yamagiwa, director-general ofRIHN, gave a welcome speech to welcome
the participants to the third edition of TERRA
school and to introduce the program. Thiswas followed by an ice-breaker activity to get
to know each other. Participants worked inpairs and introduced their buddy to thewhole group by sharing a fun fact that theylearned about each other in a 3-minutebreak-out session. Prof. Hein Mallee thenintroduced the concept of transdisciplinarityand how its practiced at RIHN and Future
Earth. The second part of the talk focused on
the concept of wicked problems, how TD
aims to address this, and the characteristics
of TD in RIHN and Future Earth.
A keynote lecture was then provided by Dr.
Rampisela. 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 inSulawesi Island, Indonesia. This projectfocused on developing strategies andcapacity to promote fair use andmanagement of irrigation water in theSulawesi Island. Dr. Rampisela explained
how the project transformed from aninterdisciplinary into a transdisciplinary
project and how the project managed toengage stakeholders throughout the project.
Based on her experience, she identified fiveprinciples to successfully enabletransdisciplinary research: 1) research should
be aimed at solving real-world problems andshould combine different types of knowledge
by partnering with societal stakeholders; 2)
project should promote stakeholder
legitimacy and balance, 3) projects should
encourage stakeholder participation andbenefits (i.e. societal and academic outputs);
4) projects should facilitate collaborative

Workshop 1: Rich pictures

actions; and 5) projects should foster projectsustainability (i.e. promote self-initiative
activities by stakeholders and sufficient
support to ensure that projects activitiescontinue after support from the research
project ends).

Day 2: defining problems
Dr. Osamu Kozan presented a case study
about the Tropical Peatland Society projectat RIHN. This project addresses the problemof frequent and large-scale fires in tropicalpeatlands in Indonesia. During thepresentation he shared why the project
decided to adopt a transdisciplinary
approach and how it has benefitted theproject. For the Peatland project, there were
5 reasons to adopt a TD approach, whichwere; 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.

discussions and attain shared understandings
among stakeholders. During the workshop,
the participants were split into four breakout 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.

Day 3: stakeholder engagement
Day 3 started with a presentation by Dr.
Norie Tamura about the FEAST project, afive-year TD project which was based at
RIHN. The FEAST project was active in four
countries (Japan, Thailand, China andBhutan) and worked together with anextensive network of stakeholders topromote transitions towards sustainable
food systems in Asia using participatory
foresight methods, such as future visioning
and scenario planning. The presentation
focused on the co-design phase of theproject and how stakeholder engagement
can be initiated and sustained throughout
the project, based on lessons learned fromthe project’s work in Kameoka city in Kyoto.

Dr. Lambino then introduced rich pictures asa tool to explore wicked problems. Rich
pictures are “a compilation of drawings,pictures, symbols, and text that represent a
particular situation or issue from theviewpoint of the person or people who drawthem” (Open University). These drawings ofdetailed representations of problematic
situations can help to understand thecomplexity of the entire situation, encourage
people to think deeply about the problem, toorganize thoughts, and to analyze
interactions. They can be a useful tool inparticipatory research process to encourage

In the Kameoka case, Food Policy Councils(FPC) were set-up to facilitate as a platform
for stakeholder engagement. In FPCs adiverse group of citizen groups, food system
stakeholders, and municipal government
officials are brought together to discuss andpropose integrative policy solutions to foodcentered problems. Besides that, Dr. Tamura
introduced other tools used in the projectsuch as visioning, back-casting, and field
experiments.

Final group presentation: Group1

Final group presentation: Group2

In the following workshop, Dr. Lambino
introduced stakeholder analysis as a tool toTERRA SCHOOL 2022 REPORT: ASIA MEETS AFRICA | FEBRUARY 2022
identify 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.

Day 4: meeting with stakeholders
Day 4 was a special session with an in-depthcase study of the Sanitation project. The
Sanitation project is a 5-year RIHN projectfocused on improving sanitation in bothdeveloped and developing countries throughtransdisciplinary research. Presentations
were provided by the project leader andproject researchers. At the end of thesession, stakeholders and project partners
from the Zambia field site also joined thesession to share about their experiences withworking with researchers and engaging intransdisciplinary research. The firstpresentation was by professor Taro
Yamauichi, project leader of the Sanitation
project. He introduced the overall approachof the project and why the project decided totake a transdisciplinary approach to address
the wicked problem of sanitation. He also
gave an overview of the project activities in
the field sites in Japan, Indonesia andZambia.
After the presentations, there were two open
forum session, one with the project
researchers and one with stakeholders of theSanitation project in Zambia, in which theparticipants could ask questions. The openforum with the researchers led to lively
discussions about how to initiate TD researchand how to overcome challenges.

In the second open forum, the TERRA schoolparticipants received the unique opportunity
to talk with some of the stakeholders of thesanitation project in Zambia to hear firsthand about their experiences and lessons
learned. The participants were particularlyinterested to hear about their experience
working with researchers, the constraints
and challenges the project faced, and what
researchers can do to overcome these. The
invited stakeholders also reflected on theachievements of the project and howtransdisciplinary research can be useful toachieve more meaningful societal impacts
compared with other research approaches.

Day 5: project management
On day 5, Dr. Yuko Onishi gave apresentation about the RIHN co-creation
project. This project aims to compile thelessons learned from the experiences ofimplementing/participating in TD projects
and to find effective methods for sharing
these lessons. She introduced some of thefindings of the project and various tips toimprove stakeholder participation.
The last workshop was on Theory of Change(TOC). Dr. Hein Mallee introduced TOC as atool to identify research objectives andpathways for change in TD research. Heprovided a background on existing TOC
concepts, why the tool is useful, and how
they can be developed. TOC is useful
because it brings attention to goals (e.g.
project outcomes and impacts), articulates
pathways for change, and exposes
assumptions and flaws/weaknesses in logic.
In TD processes, it can also be a tool for
creating mutual understanding.

In the workshop, Terra school participants
were divided again into break-out groups andwere asked to create their own theory ofchange in Miro based on the wicked problem
that they worked on during the previousworkshops. Each group developed 2-3
outcomes, taking into account the different
stakeholders they identified during workshop
2, and developed concrete steps for how toachieve these outcomes.

Day 6: group presentations
On the last day, the participants presented
their group work. Each group presented for
10 minutes about their proposed TD project
developed throughout the workshops. They
introduced their wicked problem, identified
stakeholders, research objectives and theoryof change. The projects focused on thefollowing topics: Group 1: Penang South Islands- Land
Reclamation Project.
 Group 2: Co-designing resilience toflooding in Davao, the Philippines.
 Group 3: Clean Delhi’s Air Haze: cropburning.
 Group 4: Raising awareness and changeof behaviours towards food waste(Indonesia).
The presentation session was concluded by aclosing ceremony in which Prof. Hein Mallee
presented all the participants with acertificate for successful completion of thecourse. All participants and facilitators also
had the opportunity to talk for two minutes
about their experience and learnings during
the school. The day was concluded with anafterparty in the TERRA school SpacialChatroom.

Day6: Meeting with TERRA alumni through SpatialChat

TERRA SCHOOL 2022 REPORT: ASIA MEETS AFRICA | FEBRUARY 2022

Program
Day 1: February 16
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: February 18

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: FEAST project

14:35 – 15:35

Workshop 2: Stakeholder analysis

15:45 – 16:00

Plenary group presentations 2: Stakeholder analysis

14:05 – 15:35

Case study 3: Sanitation project

15:30 – 16:20

Interaction with Sanitation project partners

14:10 – 15:40

Talk 3: TD project outcomes and theory of change

15:50 – 16:20

Workshop 3: TD project objectives and theory of change

Day 3: February 21

Day 4: February 25

Day 5: February 28Day 6: March 4
14:05 – 15:05

Plenary presentations 3: Group presentations TD projects

15:20 – 16:00

Final reflection session

16:00 – 17:00

Virtual “happy hour” with TERRA school alumni

TERRA School 2022 Report: Asia meets Africa
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: 978-4-910834-08-5