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• Impact assessment and transdisciplinary capacity building were combined in one evaluation study. • The two evaluation foci worked complementary and enhanced access and understanding of the project. • Transdisciplinary research impacts were identified and attributed to the research process. • The project team built transdisciplinary capacities which advanced the project's quality. Participation of relevant stakeholders, knowledge integration, responsive and emergent design and effective boundary management are four key features of transdisciplinary research (TDR). These features pose significant challenges to both undertaking TDR and evaluating its societal impact. We argue that TDR's context specificity and complexity warrant an evaluation approach that supports the coordinating team in developing these key features. In light of this, this article aims to reconcile two distinct foci of TDR evaluation, namely supporting transdisciplinary capacity building and impact evaluation. We share the results from a combined approach in which the authors acted both as facilitators and evaluators of a TDR project, to conduct an embedded, formative evaluation. Our findings show that the approach allowed for better access to the participants and sensitivity to their perspectives on impact, and for enhanced understanding of complex internal and external project dynamics and how these shaped the project. This resulted in a meaningful assessment of TDR's societal impacts and enabled attributing these to specific process elements. Moreover, the approach supported the coordinating TDR team's capacities for developing key TDR features. Four TDR capacities were identified: building TDR ownership, openness and transparency for integrating divergent TDR needs, purposeful responsiveness to emergent TDR needs and navigating institutional realities and TDR ambitions. The approach presented may serve as stepping stone for the TDR community to further the conversation on (the impact of) inclusive, reflexive and responsive research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food systems are associated with severe and persistent problems worldwide. Governance approaches aiming to foster sustainable transformation of food systems face several challenges due to the complex nature of food systems. In this commentary we argue that addressing these governance challenges requires the development and adoption of novel research and innovation (R&I) approaches that will provide evidence to inform food system transformation and will serve as catalysts for change. We first elaborate on the complexity of food systems (transformation) and stress the need to move beyond traditional linear R&I approaches to be able to respond to persistent problems that affect food systems. Though integrated transdisciplinary approaches are promising, current R&I systems do not sufficiently support such endeavors. As such, we argue, we need strategies that trigger a double transformation – of food systems and of their R&I systems. Seizing the opportunities to transform R&I systems has implications for how research is done – pointing to the need for competence development among researchers, policy makers and society in general – and requires specific governance interventions that stimulate a systemic approach. Such interventions should foster transdisciplinary and transformative research agendas that stimulate portfolios of projects that will reinforce one another, and stimulate innovative experiments to shape conditions for systemic change. In short, a thorough rethinking of the role of R&I as well as how it is funded is a crucial step towards the development of the integrative policies that are necessary to engender systemic change – in the food system and beyond. • Research and Innovation (R&I) could be a catalyst for food system transformation. • This requires stimulation of transformative and transdisciplinary R&I approaches. • Current conventional R&I systems do not support such R&I approaches. • Thus, we need strategies that trigger transformation of both food and R&I systems. • This has implications for research practice and requires governance interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]