=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3016/paper15
|storemode=property
|title=The fly in the soup: A critical realism perspective on the role of the engaged researcher
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3016/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-3016
|authors=Helena Vallo Hult,Anna Sigridur Islind,Livia Norström,Sara Willermark
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/stpis/HultINW21
}}
==The fly in the soup: A critical realism perspective on the role of the engaged researcher==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3016/paper15.pdf
The Fly in the Soup: A Critical Realism Perspective on the Role of
the Engaged Researcher
Helena Vallo Hult 1,2, Anna Sigridur Islind 3, Livia Norström 4 and Sara Willermark 1
1
University West, School of Business, Economics & IT, Trollhättan, Sweden
2
NU-Hospital Group, Department of Planning & Development, Trollhättan, Sweden
3
Reykjavik University, Department of Computer Science, Reykjavik, Iceland
4
University of Gothenburg, Department of Applied IT, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Abstract
Information Systems (IS) research and practice are constantly facing increasingly complex
challenges through the design and development of new technology. The new technology is
being researched through continuous engagement. This accentuates the importance of socio-
technical, engaged research through a critical view. However, the role of the researcher, and
the engagement in research projects, is less researched. Taking a 'critical' view means to study
the underlying mechanisms behind the observable, to understand change, and in this paper, we
apply such a view to studying the changes in the researchers' role. This paper is based on the
experience from four qualitative research projects, where we have studied four different public
organizations and the technology-induced change of the professionals in these organizations.
The four cases are conducted in Sweden and based on engaged research methods; an approach
that draws on the perspectives of key stakeholders in a real-world problem situation to develop
knowledge that might help address it. The underlying knowledge interest in this paper is
understanding the driving forces behind engaged research, such as action research, how such
research really is conducted and what the action entails and to shed light on some of the
difficulties of engaged research while also discussing the complexity of the role. The research
question is: what does the role of researchers in engaged research include over time? The main
contribution is outlined in an in-depth understanding of the role of an engaged researcher which
is illustrated through four main 'tradeoffs' within the role.
Keywords 1
Action Research, Engaged Scholarship, Critical realism, Socio-technical role.
1. Introduction
Engaged scholarship is a participatory form of research where the researcher takes an active part and
engages with people in practice. It is an approach to research that takes contemporary challenges of the
IS field seriously [1] based on the standpoint that scientific knowledge can be produced with
practitioners rather than for them. In this approach, conducting research is thus not something done
merely by the researcher or research team, but rather an achievement done collectively by researchers
and practitioners in collaboration throughout the research process. The level of engagement can take
different forms, depending on the research perspective (research questions) and the role of the
researcher. The different forms of engaged scholarship can be outlined on two dimensions, according
to i) the purpose of the research, which can be defined as either to describe and explain (informed or
collaborative research) or to design and control (evaluation or action research) and ii) the researcher's
role which can be considered as either detached and external or as attached and internal [1, 2].
7th International Workshop on Socio-Technical Perspective in IS development (STPIS 2021) 11-12 October 2021, Trento, Italy
EMAIL: Helena.vallo-hult@hv.se (A. 1); annasi@ru.is (A. 2); livia.norstrom@ait.gu.se (A. 3); sara.willermark@hv.se (A. 4)
ORCID: 0000-0002-0493-8974 (A. 1); 0000-0002-4563-0001 (A. 2); 0000-0001-6636-055X (A. 3); 0000-0003-1390-8379 (A. 4)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
178
However, well-engaged scholarship and action research are explained in theory; doing it in practice is
not without challenges. The underlying knowledge interest in this paper is understanding the driving
forces behind engaged research, such as action research, where the purpose is, on the one hand, to
contribute to theory and on the other hand, to contribute to practice and how such research really is
done and what the action entails and shed light on some of the difficulties of engaged research while
also dis- cussing the complexity of the role. Finally, the contribution is also targeted towards shedding
light on how both rigor and relevance can be achieved in engaged and action-oriented research through
critical realism thinking as well as role transparency.
Novel ideas about this type of research have been put forward for instance, by Mathiassen [3],
highlighting its core commitment to bridging theory and practice. This allows researchers to embrace a
variety of relevant research methodologies— including quantitative and qualitative methods—thus
offering opportunities to overcome traditional dichotomies such as core vs diversity, rigor vs relevance,
and positivist vs interpretive [1, 3]. Even so, there is still a gap concerning what happens when
researchers are heavily engaged in their research over several years. Given the socio-technical nature
of information systems, mixed methods have been suggested by various IS researchers, as essential for
their holistic view in studying information systems [see e.g. 4] but mixing them, and pendulating
between being detached with an outside-in view and attached with an inside-out view is a tricky
business. Being engaged as a researcher means being part of (initiate, lead) change processes in
organizations, often with the official or informal role as project leader, consultant, or expert.
Furthermore, within IS research, socio-technical research also considers the technical part of the
research, meaning that the role of the researcher often includes being a researcher, being a designer,
and also being a developer who follows the software through from idea to actual product.
The socio-technical perspective is relevant herein as a rationale for involving multiple stakeholders
and including diverse perspectives in the design of information systems in the public sector. The focus
of sociotechnical thinking is to achieve "equilibrium of the entire organization, people, machines, and
contexts" through active participation of stakeholders, co-creation, and co-development, which is
considered a necessity to meet current challenges in contemporary digital work [5, 6]. This means
balancing Scrum and limiting waste (which often requires hard labor and insights into the state of the
art) while juggling interviews (which requires a soft touch) and being the project manager of the project.
The research is based on the experience from four qualitative research projects, where we have studied
four different public organizations and the digital work of the professionals in these organizations:
physicians in hospitals and primary healthcare from an engaged research approach; home care and
healthcare organization from an action research approach; communication specialists in municipalities
from an engaged scholarship approach; and schoolteachers from an action research approach. The four
cases are conducted in Sweden and span five years of heavily engaged and action-oriented research.
As the title of this paper suggests, this paper will not be about being a researcher that is a fly on the
wall. It is, however, about being what we call a fly in the soup, being heavily engaged in the research,
and making all kinds of decisions along the way. The: i) push and pull of the roles of the researcher, ii)
the pendulation between the inside-out and outside-in view, iii) the struggle of knowing when enough
data has been gathered and deciding when to leave the soup, is what this paper is about. The research
question is: what does the role of researchers in engaged research include over time?
2. Historical Overview Behind the Rise in Critical Realism within modern IS
Modern IS research is paved with research on diverse digitalization efforts where the technology is
either the driving force or the impact on the social constellations is the main target point. The
combination, in a socio-technical spirit, is based on the relation between the social and the technical
system. The social system consists of professionals and their practices, cultures, and professional roles,
whereas the technical system consists of the technologies that support the work processes of the social
system [7]. The socio-technical approach is well known within the Scandinavian school, has a long
history, and is still thriving within modern IS research. The socio-technical approach was a response
which aimed to overcome the opposition between technological and social determinism but has received
criticism for being an instrumental, normative tradition, and the practical impact for the practices
involved in socio-technical research has also been questioned throughout the years [8, 9]. However, in
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the later years, the focus of the research done from a socio-technical perspective has shifted. In the early
years the research focused on altering the practices to fit the technical system, whereas today, the focus
is more on the socio-technical design where both the design of the practices involved, and the digital
artifacts, is viewed in an interplay where both need to be adapted [cf. 10]. In recent years, there has also
been a shift towards increasing interest in sociomateriality as a more modern socio-technical approach.
Sociomateriality opens for research and understanding of technology in detail without resorting to
either a strict socio-constructivist view or a technological determinist perspective, where a sociomaterial
research perspective rather proposes a view of human and technology as an entangled relation and a
process of mutual dependence [11, 12]. Sociomateriality has a strong emphasis on the relation and sets
the interaction in focus, which implies that it is the interaction that forms the practice, and not the
structures alone (hence norms and rules) [11]. Sociomateriality is thereby a perception that socially and
technologically related aspects of interaction are equally important for the outcome of interaction and
that the technology emerges, rather than is being a static artifact, in the activity or work [11].
Sociomateriality refers to a more mature concept than the socio-technical concept. The essence of
sociomateriality is that it is not possible to separate social and technical; these are "intertwined". What
we would like to illustrate with this historical overview is that sociomateriality and the intertwinedness
there could also be applied to the role of the researcher. Let us continue to elaborate. Sociomateriality
is a relational ontology, which is different from a substantial ontology that dominates the Information
Systems (IS) field [13, 14]. A substantial ontology implies a view of humans and technology as separate
entities that affect each other, while a relational ontology assumes that "the social and the material are
inherently inseparable" [12 p. 456].
As noted by Leonardi [15] the study of sociomateriality can be built on alternative theoretical
foundations: agential realism and critical realism. He describes sociomateriality as a post humanistic
reaction to the socio-constructivist view of the relation between technology and humans. In a socio-
constructivist view, humans have a dominant role and technology is more or less black-boxed or its
potential agency is ignored [9]. The field of IS has, as we point out herein, been evolving in recent
years, both with sociomateriality but also with critical realism. According to Bansler [16], those doing
research within the critical tradition from the early IS were initially interested in the use of IT and
interested in workplace democracy. Their goal was to reinforce the employee's position. This developed
over time, whereas the users were not a significant part in the early years of IS research but grew into
being a part of the research interest within the socio-technical tradition in the Scandinavian school
where the organization is treated as two systems; a social system and a technical system and these
systems function together [16]. Critical realism has come a long way as a science philosophy but is less
developed on a methodological level [17]. Here is where we come to our point, with what is missing
from modern research approaches. To continue towards the point, critical realism has been gaining
traction within modern IS. MISQ had a special issue on critical realism as a way of opening up a
structured discussion on the topic within the field of IS [18]. However, critical realism has been used
more as a behavioral science paradigm [17] and there have been few attempts to unpack how the role
of the engaged researcher can be enhanced from critical realism thinking.
3. Critical Realism
The goal of critical realists' evaluation is to see for what kind of people, in what kind of situations,
and why an IS initiative works. Critical realism is therefore about changing the focus from the data and
analytical method towards the real problem as well as the underlying causes of that problem [18]. This
allows for the use of various methods to gain deeper insights into the "meaning and significance of
information systems in the contemporary world" [18, p. 795]. Critical realism research can thereby both
be in the form of qualitative as well as quantitative research, although Carlsson [17] states that critical
realism has more domination in qualitative theory generation and qualitative evaluation studies,
suggesting critical realism as beneficial in cases where controlled experiments are not an option [17].
This is especially helpful in settings where people and technology interact and can, for instance, be
appropriate in multiple case settings. How is it really done then, is what we have asked ourselves.
Critical realism came initially as an answer to positivism and constructivism and was first launched by
Bhaskar in 1975 [cf. 17, 18]. Whereas Carlsson [17] focuses on critical empirical research cases, Nygren
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and Gidlund [19] conduct a rather abstract political discussion on power relations and cultural aspects.
They highlight that digital practices enable individualization but point out that they seduce the person
"with the thought that with digital technology it is possible to construct and display individuality" [19,
p. 515]. It is seen as a detailed form of realism and a way to recognize the reality of the natural order,
and the events and discourses of the social world [20]. Critical realism is a philosophy, in contrast to
critical design which is more about critical thinking concerning art [see e.g., 21, 22, 23].
Within modern IS, critical realism is increasingly used as a theory and consequently as analytic tool
[cf. 18, 24, 25, 26]. Taking a 'critical' view means to study the underlying mechanisms behind the
observable, to understand how to succeed or obtain desired change. It is important to note the distinction
posited between critical realism and other forms of critical theory, with the claim that critical theory
overall is interpretivism whereas critical realism per Bhaskar acknowledges a measurable firm reality,
but that the measurable elements are less interesting than the hidden generative mechanisms that bring
about those phenomena. Critical realism is presented as an alternative "philosophical underpinning for
IS research" [20, p. 269], developed as an alternative to positivism as well as constructivism, and
defined as a specific form of realism that "recognize the reality of natural order and the events and
discourses of the social world" (ibid s. 270). Our question remains, how does one apply critical realism
in engaged research. Let us continue. Critical realism has been suggested as an alternative theoretical
foundation for the study of socio- materiality that allows an analytical dualism between structure and
action [15], which is why we started with the historical overview in this chapter. We believe that a
critical realism is a valuable addition to being the fly in the soup because critical realism asks questions
of "how, why, in what circumstances and for whom [an IS initiative] has the potential to cause (desired)
changes" [20, p. 275]. Thus, acknowledging the importance of understanding contexts, settings, and
mechanisms and unpacking the mechanisms of the complexity of IS research.
4. Research Approach
This paper is based on the experience from four PhD projects in public organizations in Sweden,
each spanning five years. The cases have in common that we have studied the technology-induced
change of the professionals in these organizations. All four projects are based on approaches that draw
on the perspectives of key stakeholders in a real-world problem situation to develop knowledge that
might help address it: i) physicians in hospitals and primary healthcare from an engaged research
approach, ii) home care and healthcare organization from an action research approach, iii)
communication specialists in municipalities from an engaged scholarship approach and iv)
schoolteachers from an action research approach. An overview of the cases is presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Overview of cases with reference to corresponding publication (dissertation)
Case Case description Reference
Case 1 Public sector healthcare, where Vallo Hult [27]
physicians leverage work between
hospitals and out-patient clinics which
calls for various types of systems.
Case 2 A cancer rehabilitation clinic where the Islind [28]
nurses use various types of systems
during the course of their workday.
Case 3 Municipality where the communicators Norström [29]
have a similar situation, where they shift
between various systems.
Case 4 Primary school where the teachers shift Willermark [30]
between different systems.
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For this paper we revisited the projects, using the PhD theses as empirical data, retrospectively
reflecting on the role of the engaged researcher from a critical realism perspective. The analysis was
done in collaboration and abductively, to find patterns and themes in the material that reflected the
process and common challenges from each project respectively. The method aligns with a contrasting
multiple case study approach, with focus on contextual details and rich descriptions within and across
the empirical settings [31].
5. Findings and Analysis
The following chapter includes findings from the four PhD theses that this paper draws data from,
presented into three themes that were found in the analysis, which are illustrated through excerpts
below. The first theme is called juggling several roles at the same time and describes the push and pull
of the roles of the researcher. This is followed by the second theme, the pendulation between the inside-
out and outside-in view and balancing detachment and attachment while doing research. Then the third
and final theme of deciding when to leave the soup: the struggle of knowing when enough data has been
gathered in engaged research and action research is presented.
5.1. Juggling several roles at the same time
Action research has been criticized for the notion that it can be challenging for researchers to be
objective about the research context while being heavily involved as a researcher within the context
[28, 29]. The following excerpt is taken from case 2:
In both studies, I have had the dual role of designer and researcher. However, in
[empirical case 1], my role was more interventional and complex. The role included
being the project manager for the home care project, software architect, designer,
and researcher. I had a lead in designing the research interventions (in
collaboration with my main supervisor), was a lead designer when it came to the
digital artifact, and collected all the empirical data. I was involved in the
interaction design as well as in the software development. I did the initial
prototyping, was active during the interaction design along with another interaction
designer, was one of the developers of the Android application, and the software
architect developing and structuring the databases for all versions as well. The last
version of the mobile app was developed by a consultancy, but with day-to-day
contact with me during the development sprints (Scrum, type of Agile software
development method). This rich engagement eliminated many research methods.
In [empirical case 2], I have had the dual role of researcher and designer. It was a
less complex role than in the previous study because I have not been the project
manager in this project or involved in the programming or software architecture.
Even though this role was simpler, it has not been without complexity. It is a
complex thing being a designer and a researcher simultaneously. I have been
present and active during design interventions within the project (such as the
development of personas, UX, and other interaction design methods). These design
interventions were done to support the design process but had the dual function of
both doing that and being data collection activities. The interviews have been
conducted by me. […] My own involvement, the interventions in the empirical
settings, the research questions, the problems, and the complexity of the practices
as a social situation all point towards AR as a suitable method for my research.
When reflecting upon my role in the two empirical cases, my goal has not been to
be "a fly on the wall", but rather to be "a fly in the soup". By that, I mean that both
as a designer and as a researcher, my aim has been to be a part of the change
process, and to intervene, which eliminates the role of a neutral observer.
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The following excerpt is taken from case 1, where a part of the project is about building a bridge
between academia and industry (in this case, healthcare):
The study design is thus framed within the context of doing research as a third-party
doctoral student, as the PhD project specifically aims to promote collaboration
between practice and academia. The point of departure was to identify a research
need that addresses a practical project within the scope of information systems (IS)
and workplace learning in healthcare. While this approach has benefits in terms of
access to empirical data and a research site, as well as anchoring the research in
practice, there are challenges that arise from doing research while working. The
influence from practice and stakeholders on the research, while not without
problems, was acknowledged and addressed in all studies, being a common way to
do research in IS and related fields. However, the engaged and interdisciplinary
approach can make it hard to put boundaries on the topic, given the many
possibilities of this situated research. An approach wherein the researcher plays an
active role engaged with people in practice is consistent with an applied research
PhD project, as it bridges the challenges of being in practice while conducting
research. A defining characteristic of this approach is that it draws on the
perspectives of key stakeholders in a real-world situation and develops knowledge
specifically to address it.
The selected excerpts provided above are representative for the tradeoffs identified in the first theme
between the pitfalls and benefits that come with being knowledgeable and part of a project. It illustrates
the researcher's role as an ongoing balancing act of push and pull of various roles and demands, with
corresponding level of engagement and involvement, that takes place during an engaged PhD project.
5.2. Pendulating between an outside-in view and an inside-out view
The complexity of projects in which PhD students often find themselves is often high. Reflecting on
the role and separating the entangled roles within PhD work takes effort which is illustrated in the
following excerpt from case 2:
My main supervisor was the project manager for the overall project EU-initiative
which my empirical study nr.1 was drawn from. Included in that overall EU-
initiative, was the home care project [empirical case nr.1 in the other excerpt] (for
which I was project manager) and the home care project was one of several sub-
projects which gave my main supervisor insight into my work in [empirical case
nr.1]. My co-supervisors have thereby acted as outsiders when discussing the
findings from empirical case nr.1. One of my co-supervisors was a part of the other
project [empirical case nr.2 in the other excerpt] in the beginning, which gave my
co-supervisor insights into my work in empirical case nr.2. In relation to the results
of that study, my other two supervisors (my main supervisor and my other co-
supervisor) acted as outsiders when discussing the results from empirical case nr.2.
Shifting between discussing the findings inside and outside of the projects and
between discussing it with researchers and practitioners has contributed to me
being able to distance myself from the results and has, over time, helped me
separate my roles. These structures and different contexts helped me distance myself
from the empirical settings and the role of a designer increasingly over time, and
helped me sharpen my role as a researcher. Over time, I have realized that the roles
are separate but entangled. Wanting to forward the design process and limit waste
during development, but simultaneously wanting to preserve rigour and give
maximum room for reflection in the data collection, is a challenge I am aware of in
my findings. In addition to that (a notion that does not relate directly to my own
role, but more to the validity of the findings), specific findings have been discussed
183
with the practice, and some of the practitioners have read the papers, meaning that
they have not only been a part of the co-design process and been aware that their
involvement is a part of the findings, but also confirmed that the analysis of the
results is plausible.
This goes to the balance and pendulating between being detached, and having an outsider perspective
and being attached, and having insider perspective which is also illustrated in the following excerpt
from case 1:
As a third-party doctoral student, I have been working 50 percent on IT and
information-related development projects [at the hospital] combined with part-time
doctoral studies at the university. Experiences from engaging in practice have thus
provided a real-world context to the thesis. I have engaged in a competency-based
continuing professional development program for specialist pediatricians, and in
projects concerning patient safety and quality improvement. Altogether it has been
an iterative process of anchoring the relevance of the research questions for real-
world problems in healthcare practice. While engaged in practice, I am not,
however, a health professional and therefore also have a detached, outsider
perspective with respect to the physicians in terms of the data collection methods
for Papers 1-3. My participant role has been as an actor in changing the practice
through the combined research and development projects. […] During the final
years of the PhD project, I had the opportunity to research in the US where the
support and guidance from external supervision provided new insights and
perspectives and resulted in one of the included papers. While I was still in regular
contact with the hospital work, and participated in course work and scientific
writing, this allowed me to take a step back and approach my data from new
perspectives, as reflected in the structure of the thesis.
The excerpts show that the pendulation between an outside-in view and an inside-out view as a
researcher can be both beneficial and challenging. It highlights the importance of being aware and
reflect on the different roles and how the engagement may influence the outcomes of the project.
5.3. When to leave the soup: The struggle of knowing when enough data has
been gathered in action-oriented and engaged research
Action-oriented or engaged projects are often multi-disciplinary. In multi-disciplinary projects there
are on the one hand project goals and on the other hand there are research goals which creates tensions
both for the individual researcher and potentially within the group of researchers. The following
example is from Case 2 and highlights this dilemma. It is the researchers own reflections from a
notebook combined with explanations:
The scribble is done in a research notebook which included all kinds of research
notes. This particular picture was drawn at a meeting between the researchers
within the project. We had Friday meetings (stand-up meetings known from agile
software development) every week and during the meeting we would discuss the
data collection, the papers in the pipeline and the progress of the project. I was
struggling, at the time, with the fact that I was gathering empirical data that would
not go towards my PhD thesis, I did however write a paper on that data after I
defended my PhD thesis. The data collection activity was in line with the project
goals, but not in line with my PhD thesis. I felt guilt towards my supervisors for
prioritizing the project and at other times, when I prioritized the other way, I felt
guilt towards the project. At that point I knew I had enough data for my PhD thesis
but I did, however, not want to back down from my project responsibilities.
184
Likewise, in case 1, the challenges of combining work activities and projects with research activities
to get synergies for example for data collection is described.
The combination of doing research while engaged in practice has been important
to the thesis and outcomes of the PhD project. Working in close collaboration and
participation with relevant stakeholders at the hospital has guided and validated
my research in terms of regular collegial feedback, avoiding misconceptions that
might arise from a less engaged effort. I have been able to present and discuss
preliminary research findings in a professional setting outside of academia. The
broader perspective provided valuable knowledge and insights for the synthesis in
the cover chapter. At the same time, I am aware of difficulties with engaged
research and the complexity of the role, where the purpose is to contribute to both
theory and practice. I have been transparent about my role in all work activities
and projects related to my research at the hospital. The papers included in the thesis
did not involve interventions directly aimed at changing the practices of
participants but may have been affected by my role and connection to the hospital.
As described above, one of the strengths of being engaged in practice and working on real-word
projects is having easy and constant access to data. However, on the other hand is that the access to data
makes it problematic to put up boundaries and limits between project (goals) and research (goals). This
struggle between the project goals and research goals is illustrated in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1: Taken from research notes of the author behind case 2
In this theme, the main challenge concern prioritizing, and the tradeoff is between project goals and
research goals. The theoretical and practical do not always align, and it often up to the PhD student to
make a decision as to when enough data or development is made in terms of the research goals, even
though the project may not be finalized.
185
6. Discussion and Conclusion
In this paper, we argue for a socio-technical, engaged research approach through a critical view, as
a way to face the increasingly complex challenges that IS research and practice are currently facing.
We have described and discussed a critical perspective on the role of the researcher in three themes,
which also provides an illustration of what the role include over time: i) the push and pull of the roles
of the researcher, which means juggling several roles at the same time; ii) the pendulation between the
inside-out and outside-in view and balancing detachment and attachment while doing research; and iii)
the struggle of knowing when enough data has been gathered in engaged research and action research
and making the decision about when to leave the soup. Critical realism is proposed as a valuable
addition to being the fly in the soup, as it provides an alternative "philosophical underpinning for IS
research" [20 p. 269], to positivism as well as constructivism, that also allows an analytical dualism
between structure and action which is useful for the study of socio-technical practices [15].
Due to the known critique towards maintaining objectivity as an AR researcher [32, 33], it has been
of importance to be a part of larger research groups involving researchers, practitioners and consultants.
These constellations have called for project meetings on a regular basis where preliminary results and
plausibility of the analysis have been discussed repeatedly between the involved researchers and the
practitioners. The push and pull between roles, and the repeated discussions which iteratively move the
analysis forward, have been important. The empirical results have also been frequently presented to,
and discussed with, the practitioners. What has been guiding in all four PhD theses is the shift be- tween
being empirically grounded and analytically focused in the research. We have focused on doing periods
of empirical work, periods focused on design work, periods focused on theoretical framing, periods
focused on analytical work and writing as well as periods focused on scientific reflections. As reflected
in all themes above, the setup, and constellation around the PhD project is also central, not merely for
the progress in terms of course work and publications, but also with regard to the specific challenges of
doing engaged research. Especially, as described in case 1 and 2, the supervisor team is of importance.
They can act as a sounding board when it comes to the results of the studies, and help with distancing
the different roles, such as for in- stance from the role as a designer as well as provide support to sharpen
the research focus. To sum up, in this paper have examined what the role of researchers in engaged
research include over time. The paper provides insights into understanding the driving forces behind
engaged research, such as action research, how such research really is conducted and what the action
entails and to shed light on some of the difficulties of engaged research while also discussing the
complexity of the role. The main contribution is outlined in an in-depth understanding of the role of an
engaged researcher which is illustrated through four main 'tradeoffs' within the role.
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