What we learned from co-creating our strategy with hundreds of members worldwide
As the Coalition for Independent Technology Research expands globally, so too does the complexity of the challenges facing independent researchers. In a rapidly changing landscape of technology and governance, we want to ensure that our agenda and goals are guided by shared purpose, clear direction, and the lived realities of Coalition members.
In late 2024, the Coalition embarked on an ambitious process: to co-create our first multi-year strategy with Coalition members around the world: hundreds of academics, civil society researchers and journalists from over 45 countries. This is the story of how we did it, and what we learned along the way.
Collective decision making
A strategy isn’t just a plan or a list of goals. It’s a collective roadmap – a framework that connects our ambition to action, grounded in an understanding of what we’re up against and where, working together in lockstep with other researchers around the world, we can have the most impact.
As a Coalition, our purpose is to improve the public’s understanding of the societal impacts of technology. We do this by strengthening the field of independent tech research – which means defending researchers who face retaliation for their work, pushing for transparency and access to information that enables this critical work, and building the power and influence of researchers who conduct their work independently from the technology industry.
Our strategy gives shape to this mission. It helps us prioritize, organize, and collaborate in ways that reflect our shared values and theory of change.
The Coalition serves several critical functions: we act as a mutual aid network that defends the rights of independent researchers to carry out their work without fear of retribution, an interest group that advocates for public interest research to play a critical role in shaping the future of technology, and a community hub for independent researchers to develop their careers, learn new skills, sharpen their analyses, and build the field of industry-independent researchers.
How we co-created a strategy with Coalition members
The Coalition is powered by a strong community of 500+ independent researchers, including academics, civil society researchers and journalists, as well as 120 research institutions. A small staff team, governed by a Board of Directors, organize, facilitate and coordinate initiatives across the Coalition that help members collaborate to advance our shared mission.
To co-create a strategic framework that reflected the experiences, insights and aspirations of such a diverse community, we needed to design a participatory process that invited input, iteration, and collaboration at every stage.
In partnership with Gunner at Aspiration, we created multiple ways for Coalition members to collaborate through a participatory process:.
- Independent Tech Researchers’ Summit (June 2024): Our first-ever summit set the stage. Over two days of rich discussions, two strategic pillars emerged – Policy and Advocacy, and Community Empowerment – to guide how we organize our work.
- Surveys: A quick three-question survey gathered members’ hopes and challenges. Follow-up sessions, using survey responses, helped to guide discussions and dig deeper, exploring themes such as power mapping, strategic advocacy, and collaboration across our global network.
- Strategy Jams: These sessions focused on enumerating our goals, and refining our theory of change. Some breakouts explored what our strategic advocacy should look like, while others defined how we should collaborate across our global membership.
- 1:1 conversations: Insights continued to flow through one-on-one meetings, onboarding sessions, and check-ins. We worked in the open – sharing drafts, seeking feedback, and refining ideas in real time over several months.
- Expert guidance: At the beginning of the process, we sought out examples of intersectional movement strategies, such as CAAD, Mijente, Union of Concerned Scientists, and The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, all of whom inspired us with their values-driven movement strategies. Strategic advisors, including Alix Dunn and Aspiration, challenged us to see our work through political, global, and movement-building lenses.
This participatory process taught us as much about strategy as it did about ourselves as a coalition. Some of our reflections on the process include:
- Participation builds legitimacy. The process mattered as much as the outcome. Co-creating our strategy across the Coalition brought a great sense of shared achievement, credibility, ownership, and collective energy as a collective.
- Honest conversations strengthen communities. Strategy Jams breakouts and especially smaller conversations offered time for reflection and feedback where Coalition members could speak openly about power, risks, and aspirations.
- Iteration takes patience and time. Working in the open meant constant revision and feedback. It took longer than expected, but the result is richer, clearer, and more grounded in real-world needs.
- Strategy is emergent. Our strategy is not static and can shift with the evolving ecosystem and the shifting landscape of technology and research.
Looking ahead
What we’ve built together is more than a strategy – it’s a foundation for shared action and ongoing learning. It reflects who we are as a community and how we want to shape the future of independent technology research. We’re proud of what we’ve co-created – and even more excited for what comes next. Read more about our strategy here.