BRIEF: Co-designing a research programme for impact - doing science differently

BioHeritage’s mission is to reverse the decline of New Zealand’s biological heritage, through a national partnership to deliver a step change in research innovation, globally leading technologies, and community and sector action.

Collective input from many participants with diverse knowledge systems is necessary to achieve such a large mission so in 2019, BioHeritage convened 11 scoping groups of 8 to 10 people including Māori partners, researchers, stakeholders, and end-users from a diverse range of organisations to co-design a set of goals and impact pathways for a nationwide strategy of research in the biodiversity and biosecurity sectors.

An EOI process was held to select participants with 237 applications received from 64 organisations. People took part as individuals, not representing organisations, and brought input from their wider networks. We paid people for their time so they could devote attention, and recognised that this sort of input doesn’t come for free.