Abstract Participation of relevant stakeholders, knowledge integration, responsive and emergent design and effective boundary management are four key features of transdisciplinary research (TDR). These features pose significant challenges to both undertaking TDR and evaluating its societal impact. We argue that TDR’s context specificity and complexity warrant an evaluation approach that supports the coordinating team in developing these key features. In light of this, this article aims to reconcile two distinct foci of TDR evaluation, namely supporting transdisciplinary capacity building and impact evaluation. We share the results from a combined approach in which the authors acted both as facilitators and evaluators of a TDR project, to conduct an embedded, formative evaluation. Our findings show that the approach allowed for better access to the participants and sensitivity to their perspectives on impact, and for enhanced understanding of complex internal and external project dynamics and how these shaped the project. This resulted in a meaningful assessment of TDR’s societal impacts and enabled attributing these to specific process elements. Moreover, the approach supported the coordinating TDR team’s capacities for developing key TDR features. Four TDR capacities were identified: building TDR ownership, openness and transparency for integrating divergent TDR needs, purposeful responsiveness to emergent TDR needs and navigating institutional realities and TDR ambitions. The approach presented may serve as stepping stone for the TDR community to further the conversation on (the impact of) inclusive, reflexive and responsive research.

中文翻译：

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结合评估者和促进者的角色：评估跨学科研究的社会影响，同时建设提高其质量的能力

摘要 相关利益相关者的参与、知识整合、响应式和紧急设计以及有效的边界管理是跨学科研究（TDR）的四个关键特征。这些特征对实施 TDR 和评估其社会影响都构成了重大挑战。我们认为，TDR 的上下文特殊性和复杂性需要一种评估方法，以支持协调团队开发这些关键功能。有鉴于此，本文旨在调和 TDR 评估的两个不同重点，即支持跨学科能力建设和影响评估。我们分享了作者作为 TDR 项目的促进者和评估者的组合方法的结果，以进行嵌入式、形成性评估。我们的研究结果表明，该方法允许更好地接触参与者并了解他们对影响的看法，并增强对复杂的内部和外部项目动态以及这些动态如何影响项目的理解。这导致对 TDR 的社会影响进行了有意义的评估，并能够将这些影响归因于特定的过程要素。此外，该方法支持协调 TDR 团队开发关键 TDR 功能的能力。确定了四种 TDR 能力：建立 TDR 所有权、开放性和透明度以整合不同的 TDR 需求、有目的地响应紧急 TDR 需求以及驾驭制度现实和 TDR 雄心。提出的方法可以作为 TDR 社区的垫脚石，以促进关于包容性（的影响）的对话，