Ethics in engaged/transformative research - lessons learned

Just imagine: With a lot of energy and an open mind you kick off your new project with relevant parties around the table. But what if, at the end of the meeting, it appears stakeholders would like to solve a different problem than you had in mind. And contributing to solve this problem is not in line with your intentions and your research agenda. Or imagine: You have done your utmost to involve a diversity of different voices, disciplines and worldviews in your transdisciplinary research efforts. But what if upon sharing your research approach the comment is that you reached out to the usual suspects again and that this only will lead to fatigue with certain groups while it silences other groups of people. Transformative or engaged research typically involves multiple problem-owners or stakeholders with whom the researcher - or more often - researchers engage around specific societal problems. Such a set-up means that the societal problem will be approached from different angles, each of which will lead to different solutions which in turn may be more favourable for one group than for another. How to know what is good ‘behaviour’ as a researcher in such multi-actor collaborations?