Designing Engaged Scholarship: From Real-World Problems to Research Publications

Engaged scholarship is a participatory form of research for studying complex real-world problems based on the different perspectives and understandings of key stakeholders. As such, it affords researchers the opportunity to contribute to practical problem solving while at the same time developing new theoretical insights. Although there is significant research methodology available to support engaged scholarship, we lack practical knowledge on how to navigate the complex and uncertain process from engagement with a real-world problem to publication of research results. In this essay, I present a tutorial on how you can design engaged scholarship by iterating between the key components of a study and the structure of the resulting publication. The approach helps you manage the complexities and uncertainties involved in engaged scholarship by designing your research activity and your research publication and by iteratively moving back and forth between these artifacts as you engage in your research and develop your publication. The approach draws on extant research methodology and on my practical experience coaching other researchers. I illustrate the different parts of this design approach to engaged scholarship and offer guiding principles to help you adapt and use it.