New matrix supports decision-making for policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners

Researchers, NGOs, activists all around the World stress the urgent need for transformative change to halt – or at least slow down the alarming loss of biodiversity. While this idea is widely acknowledged in policies and funding calls—using terms like “transformations,” “interventions,” and “transdisciplinary partnerships”—we still lack clear understanding of how partnerships can actually drive such change.

This gap is especially clear when tackling biodiversity loss, which is often overlooked in research and decision-making. To address it, researchers of PLANET4B project created the Reflexivity-Situatedness Matrix (RSM)—a tool that helps critically examine both the goals of change and the practical steps to achieve them.

The matrix can guide biodiversity-focused actions at multiple decision-making levels, taking into account fairness, equality, and power asymmetries in partnerships. Drawing on literature and our experience from the Horizon Europe PLANET4B project, we offer a refined way to think about transformative change and how to implement it.

Source: Ilkhom Soliev, Agnes Zolyomi, Alex Franklin

Our work is intended to help researchers, policymakers, and practitioners build effective partnerships and design impactful interventions for biodiversity.

Read our recent scientific analysis and learn about the methodology and gain a deeper understanding of the decision support tool.