The term "transformative research" is not so much aimed at a specific content or a concrete research object, but rather takes research itself into consideration. Thus, it is not primarily about research on transformation, but about asking how research itself can be transformative. Presumably, all research claims to be transformative in some way. Transformative research, however, wants to focus on this explicitly, i.e., to consciously accompany and reflect on change processes as well as to specifically initiate them.

Two perspectives are central here - and it is important to distinguish between the two: First, a descriptive one, i.e., one that observes and describes transformation processes induced by research as meticulously as possible, while practicing an attitude of "epistemic modesty" or restraint. In other words, it is a matter of describing as soberly and normative neutral as possible how processes of change manifest themselves in a particular research project. This also includes clarifying terms, especially in order to be able to locate oneself in the thicket of countless notions of "transformation."

Second, transformative research also aims to initiate positive transformation processes in a normative sense and to critically reflect on certain science policy prescriptions or research paradigms that set the tone as a matter of course, but in the process perpetuate certain power structures and epistemic injustices. In other words, it seeks to be socially transformative, pursuing goals such as sustainability, justice, or solidarity, and criticizing research practices that patronize and monoculturally accept only certain methods as "scientific," "rational," or "objective."

Transformative research thus means that our concrete research projects, e.g. on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan, on abuse and child protection, on questions of socio-ecological transformation or on the consequences of energy production from sewage sludge, are accompanied by the critical gaze of transformative research. Conversely, it is precisely from these concrete projects that we gain an understanding of how transformative research can succeed. The factual question and the method are thus mutually dependent and drive each other beyond.

This means that transformative research aims at change processes in at least three directions: (1) it wants to bring about change through the research process itself (not only through its results), (2) the research project itself exposes itself to change by addressing concrete factual questions, (3) the researchers themselves emerge differently from this undertaking. All of this, of course, applies to the project of "transformative research" itself - which is why the description presented can only be a snapshot in statu nascendi, meaning, in the ongoing process of becoming. It is the paradox of a "living definition" that looks forward to the DigiLog project.