Community engagement and integrated research are key approaches to solving complex
socio-ecological challenges. This paper describes the experience of bringing together a team
of natural and social scientists from Australia and Indonesia in the ‘Gambut Kita’ (translated
as ‘Our Peat’) project. Gambut Kita aims to produce new knowledge and support efforts to
successfully, and equitably, restore Indonesia’s tropical peatlands and ensure that livelihoods
can be maintained on restored (rewetted) landscapes. The paper focuses on experiences of
using community engagement for integrated research. It discusses three community
engagement approaches used in the project—resilience, adaptation pathways and transformation
approach (RAPTA), participatory rural appraisal (PRA), and community-led analysis
and planning (CLAP). It also describes the qualitative analysis of 14 interviews with the
project team of lessons learned in community engagement for integrated research. ‘Criteria
for success’ from the literature on international development projects is used to assess
progress. The findings highlight the specific complexities of working across countries and
cultures. Successful community engagement is not so much about the ‘tool’ but about the
trust, agency, and support to change. The tools do, however, have different strengths. PRA
and CLAP can build deep community understanding and relationships. RAPTA has strengths
in framing visions and pathways to the future, systems thinking, anticipatory learning, and
taking a cross-scale systems view which is required to solve many of the problems manifesting
at local or community scales. Similarly, success in integrated research is not just about
individuals, but structures (e.g. explicit process) and infrastructure (e.g. access to technology).
These findings suggest that integrated research needs special considerations in terms
of design, and these relate across scales to individual researchers as well as teams, leaders
and organisations. Integrated research projects need careful, inclusive, iterative management
with a lot of interaction to learn from each other, build a common vision, achieve clarity of
roles, and share emerging findings.