Expertise in research integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of tackling complex societal and environmental problems. We focus on expertise relevant to any complex problem, especially contributory expertise, divided into ‘knowing-that’ and ‘knowing-how.’ We also deal with interactional expertise and the fact that much expertise is tacit. We explore three questions. First, in examining ‘when is expertise in research integration and implementation required?,’ we review tasks essential (a) to devel- oping more comprehensive understandings of complex problems, plus possible ways to address them, and (b) for supporting implementation of those understandings into govern- ment policy, community practice, business and social innovation, or other initiatives. Second, in considering ‘where can expertise in research integration and implementation currently be found?,’ we describe three realms: (a) specific approaches, including interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, systems thinking and sustainability science; (b) case-based experience that is independent of these specific approaches; and (c) research examining elements of integration and implementation, specifically considering unknowns and fostering innovation. We highlight examples of expertise in each realm and demonstrate how fragmentation currently precludes clear identification of research integration and implementation expertise. Third, in exploring ‘what is required to strengthen expertise in research integration and implementation?,’ we propose building a knowledge bank. We delve into three key chal- lenges: compiling existing expertise, indexing and organising the expertise to make it widely accessible, and understanding and overcoming the core reasons for the existing fragmen- tation. A growing knowledge bank of expertise in research integration and implementation on the one hand, and accumulating success in addressing complex societal and environmental problems on the other, will form a virtuous cycle so that each strengthens the other. Building a coalition of researchers and institutions will ensure this expertise and its application are valued and sustained.

Community environmental management (CEM) involves the facilitation of community partnerships, local dialogue, consultation and participative decision-making. This is increasingly seen as a solution to some of the more complex environmental issues faced by regulatory authorities. Anecdotal evidence suggests that CEM programmes have much potential, but the evaluation of them is problematic, and there is a need for more robust evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reports on the development of a new CEM evaluation approach (inspired by soft systems methodology, developmental work research and systemic intervention), which was trialled with a New Zealand regional council. The approach shows promise in addressing common evaluation bottlenecks and helping stakeholders to develop causal narratives that more fully account for the complex relationship between community participation and environmental outcomes. However, while the local participants in the CEM initiative acted on the evaluation findings, they hoped that it would stimulate wider organisational change, and this did not happen. Project reflections, informed by institutional theory, reveal that the logics of 'participation' and 'community' implicit in the findings were appropriate for local participants, but non-participating regional council stakeholders read the findings with different logics, and therefore the evaluation failed to communicate the necessity for wider change. The reflections highlight a previously unrecognised evaluation bottleneck. While the CEM evaluation methodology has the potential to be adapted for other contexts, if wider organisational change is required, care must be taken to anticipate the different institutional logics of stakeholders who might be unfamiliar with, or even hostile to, CEM. (c) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper addresses the under-researched issue of stakeholder identification and engagement in problem structuring interventions. A concise framework is proposed to aid critical reflection in the design and reporting of stakeholder identification and engagement. This is grounded in a critical-systemic epistemology, and is informed by social identity theory. We illustrate the utility of the framework with an example of a problem structuring workshop, which was part of a green innovation project on the development of a technology for the recovery of rare metals from steel slag. The workshop was initially going to be designed to surface stakeholder views on the technology itself. However, it became apparent that a range of other strategic issues concerning the future of the site were going to impact on decision making about the use of steel slag. It therefore became important to evolve the agenda for the problem structuring, and this is where the critical-systemic approach made a difference. It enabled the workshop to be reframed as a community-based event looking at how the former steelworks site could be developed for new purposes. Evaluation of this problem structuring intervention revealed significant stakeholder learning about the issues needing to be accounted for, and a range of possible options for the development of the steelworks site were explored. The paper ends with a discussion of the utility of social identity theory for understanding the processes and outcomes of the workshop, and reflections are provided on its implications for operational research practice more generally.

This report describes the Global Food Security (GFS) Boundaries Project, which represents the first systematic attempt to apply critical systems thinking and practice to a food systems research programme (as opposed to a single food system project). The focus was the Global Food Security – Resilience of the UK Food System in a Global Context (GFS-FRS) Research Programme, made up of 13 projects looking at different aspects of the UK food system.

Adaptation to climate change is impacted by a range of interrelated processes operating from local to global levels. There are often significant disconnects between different people’s perceptions of respon- sibilities, capabilities and motivations, and divergent understandings of how the system works across actors, sectors and levels of governance. This results in misalignments of policies and practices, plus in- effective flows of resources and knowledge across the network of climate adaptation actors. As these disconnects are rooted in deep misunderstandings of the grounded realities of different actors, an expe- riential process of mutual discovery is required to build shared understanding and mutual respect. While it is common in the literature for people to talk about multi-level governance, most existing planning processes involve the production of separate plans at each individual level, based on the often-mistaken assumption that they will aggregate into an effective multi-level approach. This paper presents a new, multi-level integrated planning and implementation (MIPI) process, bringing together diverse actors from community, district, regional and national levels in the same workshop. The MIPI process creates a safe space that allows participants to interact directly in conducting systemic, cross-level analyses, as well as the multi-level integration of policies, plans and programs. The paper describes how the MIPI process was designed and facilitated in Ghana to address climate change, agricultural development and food se- curity. This methodology has potential for much broader applicability to complex, multi-level planning and implementation processes. 

• Systems leadership is only part of what is needed to deal with cross-cutting issues.

• Leaders need to be allowed to step back from the system they are in, think about what they are trying to achieve in relation to the bigger picture, and collaborate with a broad range of stakeholders.

• Doing this effectively requires systems thinking​, which enhances systems leadership. This paper outlines some of the most useful systems thinking approaches.

This paper explores the impacts of the Mindfulness-Based Behavioural Insights and Decision-Making (MBBI) programme. Combining mindfulness with behavioural insights instruction, the authors have developed the MBBI programme through a series of iterative trials over the last ten years. In addition to fusing mindfulness and behavioural insights, this programme also draws on the theories of autopoiesis, anticipatory systems, the predictive brain and constructed emotions, which all challenge the common assumption that behavioural and emotional responses are automatic (triggered by given stimuli and not open to change through self-reflection). The paper explores the use of the MBBI in the Welsh Civil Service. Employing evidence from in-depth interviews with participants and a SenseMaker analysis, it rethinks the role of mindfulness at work, repurposes the application of behavioural insights training toward a more ethical and systemic direction, and develops a reflective approach to capability building amongst public servants.

The term ‘systemic innovation’ is increasing in use, but there is no consensus on its meaning: five understandings of the term can be identified, each based on a different view of what the word ‘systemic’ should refer to. The first understanding focuses on technologies, where the innovation in focus is synergistically integrated with other complementary innovations, going beyond the boundaries of a single organization. Therefore, ‘systemic’ refers to technological innovations interacting in a larger product system. A second use of the term refers to the development of policies and governance at a local, regional or national scale to create an enabling environment for innovation systems. Here, ‘systemic’ means recognition that innovation systems can be enabled and/or constrained by a meta-level policy system. The third use of the term says that an innovation is ‘systemic’ when its purpose is to change societal laws and norms to place new enablers and constraints on innovation in the interests of ecological sustainability. What makes this systemic is acknowledgement of the existence of nested systems: innovation systems are parts of economic systems, which are parts of societal systems, and all societies exist on a single planetary ecosystem. The fourth use focuses on collaboration in innovation networks with multiple actors. This has evolved from the first understanding of systemic innovation, but the critical difference is the primary focus on people and processes rather than technological products. The word ´systemic´ refers to the interdependency of actors in a business or community context, leading to a need to co-create value and innovate in concert or through co-evolutionary dynamics. The fifth use of the term ‘systemic innovation’ concerns how people engage in a process to support systemic thinking and action, and it is primarily this process, and the thinking and action it gives rise to, that is seen as systemic, rather than the innovation system that they exist within or are trying to create.  It is this fifth understanding that accords with most of the literature on systems thinking published over the last fifty years. The current paper offers a contemporary perspective on what systems thinkers mean by ‘systemic’, and this not only enables us to provide a redefinition of ‘systemic innovation’, but it also helps to show how all four previous forms of innovation that have been described as systemic can be enhanced by the practice of systems thinking.

Applied systems thinking has evolved since the 1950s through three paradigmatic waves. Authors in the first wave regarded systems as real-world entities, and systems models as representations of reality, so objectivity was important. In contrast, second wave authors emphasized thinking in terms of systems, and the exploration of multiple perspectives. The role of models was to aid mutual under- standing and enhance the appreciation of diverse viewpoints on possible actions to be taken. In the 1980s, first and second wave advocates came into conflict. Then some third wave authors, initially working under the banner of critical systems thinking, argued that the division of the systems research community into two camps was unhelpful, and they advocated methodological pluralism – mixing methods from both traditions. Other authors set out to address power relations during interventions – in particular, the practice of exploring value and boundary judgments in projects in order to address conflict and marginalization. This practice came to be called “boundary critique,” and it was eventually integrated with methodological pluralism in a new approach called “systemic intervention.” This chapter gives readers a thorough overview of the emergence and maturation of both critical systems thinking and systemic intervention, illustrated with practical exam- ples. It then discusses two major problems that remain unaddressed in the third wave. First, the increasing proliferation of methodologies and methods has resulted in such a diversity of views on systems thinking, that explaining what it is to newcomers has become a real challenge. Second, despite this diversity, all the new methodologies and methods are still founded on principles of rational analysis, and approaches that go beyond this are marginalized. For instance, arts-based and theater methods are rarely mentioned in the literature on systems thinking, yet they can help people discover how their value and boundary assumptions have roots in unconscious impulses and memories. Such discoveries help to unfreeze taken-for-granted understandings, including the internalization of oppressive power relationships. Very recent writings have begun to tackle these problems, but it is too soon to judge whether they represent an extension of the third wave, or the first swellings of a new, fourth wave of systems thinking. 

Throughout its history, Operational Research has evolved to include methods, models and algorithms that have been applied to a wide range of contexts. This encyclopedic article consists of two main sections: methods and applications. The first summarises the up-to-date knowledge and provides an overview of the state-of-the-art methods and key developments in the various subdomains of the field. The second offers a wide-ranging list of areas where Operational Research has been applied. The article is meant to be read in a nonlinear fashion and used as a point of reference by a diverse pool of readers: academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The entries within the methods and applications sections are presented in alphabetical order. The authors dedicate this paper to the 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquake victims. We sincerely hope that advances in OR will play a role towards minimising the pain and suffering caused by this and future catastrophes.

This report provides the results of two half-day online workshops hosted by Active Withernsea. The workshops were led by Professor Gerald Midgley (University of Hull), together with members of Active Withernsea and people who work with or for organisations in Withernsea, and they explored the question of “What inequalities affect physical activities in Withernsea, and what should be done about them?”

This report covers the findings emerging from these workshops, and recommendations for future policies and actions. The latter could be taken up by local residents and organisations in Withernsea, as well as by Sport England. The exploration of needs in Withernsea was undertaken to ground the recommendations to Sport England in locally-lived experiences, and the ideas for Sport England national policies fall into two categories:

1.  Those that are needed to mitigate the effects of existing inequalities on physical activity.

2.  Those that are needed to prevent inequalities, so there is less of a problem in the first place.

The implication of this second category is that Sport England needs to work with other government departments to proactively address inequalities and support the ‘levelling up’ agenda, in addition to mitigating inequalities that already impact on people’s physical activities.

In this paper, we propose a research agenda to support the recovery of Alexander Bogdanov's philosophical and systemic thinking that culminated in his magnum opus, Tektology. Our main reason for doing so is to re-address enduring questions about the unity of science and the unity of the systems paradigm. Since the turn of the new millennium, there has been renewed interest in the ideal of the unity of science. General system theory (GST), cybernetics and complexity science are three significant intellectual sources inspiring this renewal. It is not unusual for these ideas to be grouped under the umbrella terms systems science or systems thinking, which are two ways to present a single systems paradigm, and we will explain why its "unity" is both necessary and problematic. Bringing Bogdanov's work back to address the unity question can help us to progress toward unity in diversity.

Government agencies struggle to address wicked problems because they are open-ended, highly interdependent issues that cross agency, stakeholder, jurisdictional, and geopolitical boundaries. While both quantitative modelling and qualitative problem structuring methodologies have been used to support interagency decision making in the past, co-designing an effective interagency organization to collaboratively tackle wicked problems is more challenging. Few approaches have been developed to enable such efforts. This paper explains how the viable system model (VSM) was implemented through a board game, which was employed to co-design an interagency meta-organization that would be capable of more effectively collaborating to jointly address a wicked problem: international organized drug crime and its interface with local gangs in Chicago, USA. The board game was developed to make the VSM easier for the participants to learn, given that the cybernetic language and engineering-influenced diagrams in the original literature can be off-putting to leaders and managers. The board game was used as the final stage of a multi-method, systemic approach, which involved boundary critique and problem structuring as well as deployment of the VSM. The research findings indicate that the VSM board game, used as part of a larger mixed-methods systemic intervention, contributes to building trust in the value of systems thinking amongst the participants, and sets up a rich context for collaboration on multi-agency co-design. The game therefore offers significant promise as part of the co-design of interagency responses to wicked problems because it creates an embodied process for stakeholders to learn about the VSM. It also reduces the work involved in this learning. Thus, the game enables an effective appropriation of the VSM language and criteria.

Wicked problems are open-ended, highly interdependent issues that cross agency, stakeholder, jurisdictional, and geopolitical boundaries. In response, there has been advocacy for interagency working. However, this confounds conventional approaches to government because policies and budgets tend to be aligned within organizational boundaries and not across them, making it difficult to bring the appropriate talent, knowledge and assets into an interagency approach to tackle the interdependencies of whatever wicked problem is at hand. In addition, the purposes, perspectives and values of the various government agencies and other stakeholders can often be in conflict. This paper reports on research to develop and evaluate a systemic intervention approach involving the use of multiple methods underpinned by boundary critique to address a wicked problem. The major focus is how to create a common understanding of a wicked problem among multiple agencies using a participatory problem structuring method called ‘systemic perspective mapping’. The wicked problem we tackled was international organized drug crime and its intersection with local urban gang activity (using Chicago, USA, as a representative city). Perspectives on the problem were structured with participation from various local, regional and federal agencies involved in countering illegal drug trafficking. Our research found that the combined use of boundary critique and systemic perspective mapping was able to generate enough of a common understanding to provide a foundation for the design of an interagency organization using the viable system model (the latter is reported elsewhere in the literature).