Interventions to realise one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) might affect the pursuit of another in various ways. Interventions can have (i) separate effects (ii) contradictions and conflicts (iii) consecutive effects, and/or (iv) spill-over and synergies. To better understand such interactions and contribute to policies that promote synergies, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) initiated the ‘Sustainable Development Goals Interactions and Policy Interventions in Developing Countries’ programme, funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With this proposal for the programme’s ‘Knowledge Brokering and Synthesis’ (KBS) trajectory, the consortium of dr. Nicky Pouw (University of Amsterdam), prof. Dzodzi Tsikata (University of Ghana) and Yannicke Goris (The Broker, The Hague) aims to build new structures between multiple knowledge fields and holders, in order to arrive at new insights and innovative solutions to optimize SDG-interactions towards inclusive development. The project is divided into three phases: 1) An initiation phase to lay a firm foundation for the KBS activities and deliverables; 2) A research phase to conduct the analytical synthesis and execute the core activities; 3) A harvest and uptake phase, including publishing the final synthesis report and securing knowledge uptake. Additionally, a post-doc researcher will be recruited, working closely together with the knowledge brokers to complement their activities and syntheses and scientifically embed the research findings in scholarly debates. The project approach is characterized by an iterative process that consists of four interrelated and mutually reinforcing analytical steps, executed throughout the project : (1) Finding complementarities, synergies and contradictions; (2) Collect opinions that give meaning to facts, and facts that adjust opinions; (3) Identifying exceptions that counter generalizations; and (4) Using comparisons to formulate solutions. Throughout the process close attention will be paid to alignment between research, practice and policy to maximize research relevance and uptake.
