The IIASA TRUST Strategic Initiative focuses on: (i) strengthening the knowledge base for raising awareness on fostering trust through participation-driven science, (ii) lowering the barrier for scientists to use participation-driven approaches, and (iii) providing concrete empirical evidence of the role of participation driven science for raising trust in science. TRUST solidifies IIASA’s Strategy goal to promote the use of participatory processes and soft systems analysis and enables researchers to work towards earning trust among the wider public.
Researchers from IIASA's Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Program, Biodiversity and Natural Resources (BNR) Program, Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) Program as well as from the Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) Program are joining forces to carry out the IIASA TRUST Strategic Initiative.
© IIASA
TRUST is based on an integrated methodological approach organised in six work packages. Through these work packages TRUST will establish the knowledge base on trust dynamics in participatory systems science (WP1), informing the development of a trust in systems science survey (WP2) for gauging levels of trust in scientific outputs and towards scientists among focus groups before and after joining case studies in the test module (WP5). In WP3, TRUST initiates a network on participation-driven science tools open to IIASA and NMO researchers as well as partners from the wider research community in the fields of trust and public engagement. Harnessing insights from the network and consolidating knowledge from across IIASA and beyond, WP4 focuses on developing a toolkit on science engagement tools. The resulting knowledge framework then serves as the basis of our investigation into trust in system science in the test module (WP 5), where we plan to implement various participation-driven approaches from the toolkit to research trust dynamics within participatory scientific processes. WP6 focuses on communicating TRUST activities and insights with the TRUST network (WP3) and the public.
By initiating research that invites reflections about our own approach to engaging stakeholders in our research, TRUST opens the door to more self-aware scientific processes in systems analysis and beyond, and invites researchers to think about the need to earn the trust of the wider public.
IIASA colleagues and researchers from National and Regional Member Organizations and beyond are invited to collaborate with the TRUST Strategic Initiative, including through the TRUST Network, the ScienceEngage toolkit and in the TRUST test module.
Please feel free to get in touch with the TRUST team if you are planning participation-driven research and would like to work with us.
You can reach the TRUST PI Teresa M. Deubelli-Hwang at deubelli@iiasa.ac.at.
Teresa Deubelli-Hwang
Research Scholar (SYRR, EQU)
Jung Hee Hyun
Research Scholar (SYRR)
Kara Pasmore
Research Assistant (SYRR)
Jenan Irshaid
Researcher (WAT, EQU)
Susanne Hanger-Kopp
Research Scholar (EQU)
Dilek Fraisl
Research Scholar (NODES)
Sibel Eker
Senior Research Scholar (S3)
Franziska Gaupp
Guest Research Scholar (EQU)
Flora Brocza
Researcher (PM)
Leila Niamir
Research Scholar (S3, TISS)
News
27 November 2023
EQU Justice Framework Workshop at IIASA
The Equity and Justice Research Group, in collaboration with the IIASA Strategic Initiative projects fairSTREAM, JustTRans4ALL and TRUST, hosted a Justice Framework Workshop on 16 November at IIASA.
20 January 2023
Austrian Federal Minister for Education, Science, and Research visits IIASA
IIASA recently welcomed Austria's Federal Minister for Education, Science, and Research, Martin Polaschek, to discuss ongoing research projects and explore potential collaborations between the institute and the Austrian government.