Why solving big problems needs a new way to review literature

Why solving big problems needs a new way to review literature

Grand Challenges cannot be solved by a single discipline. This can be about reducing food waste, addressing the climate crisis, helping people live healthier and other big aspirations. They demand bold, multidisciplinary solutions. Yet, when researchers attempt to synthesise existing knowledge to tackle these massive issues, they are often hindered by the very tools designed to help them.

Currently, the gold standard for conducting a literature review is the PRISMA protocol (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). Originally designed for the medical sciences to evaluate the efficacy of specific clinical interventions, PRISMA is incredibly effective at answering narrow, linear questions. Other available review protocols do so similarly.

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However, PRISMA is less effective for reviewing the complex multi-disciplinary Grand Challenges: It directs researchers to exclusively zoom into the narrow intersection between two or more fields.

The typical search query is “(keyword domain A OR synonyms) AND (keyword domain B OR synonyms)”. This intersection becomes overly narrow when knowledge domains C and D are also considered. When scholars confine to such narrow intersection, the bigger picture of Grand Challenges is likely to be missed, along with foundational theories from the broader individual domains.

Synthesising evidence across multiple domains/disciplines following PRISMA may be systematic, but may also systematically exclude relevant knowledge. Following PRISMA for three or more domains becomes a systematic chaos, even more in social sciences where synonyms come in abundance. Researchers end up with an overly narrow and/or messy corpus of literature, which provides only fragmented insights onto the problem. Invertedly, this leads to narrow findings lacking foundational theory and real-world practicality.

To address this methodological blind spot, we developed a new methodology to review literature: The Lotus Protocol. This review protocol is designed specifically to help researchers manage the "combinatorial complexity" of exploring multiple, intersecting fields of knowledge without losing the broader context. Suitable for reviewing Grand Challenges and other interdisciplinary topics.

Broader Systems Thinking

Instead of narrowing down onto one intersection, the Lotus review starts with the broader domains and systematically covers all intersections between two or more domains. To explain why this process improves research contributions, we demonstrate this on a sustainability challenge with the research question: How can governments measure and manage the circular economy?

If a researcher uses a traditional review protocol like PRISMA, they are directed to search only for literature that sits at the exact centre where "circular economy" and "measurement metrics" overlap. A review-study that followed this protocol was published in 2021. It narrows strictly on that intersection, evaluating existing circularity metrics. Among the findings is that most research has focused on plastic recycling metrics. Do high plastic recycling rates define the optimal circularity economy? Nay, this is overly narrow and misses the foundational theory and practical aim of the circular economy. 

Contrast this with a more expansive approach, akin to what The Lotus Protocol advocates. A 2022 review-study addresses the same research question, but starts its review much broader. Before zooming into the intersection of ‘circular economy’ and ‘measurement’, the researchers step back to examine how the circular economy is fundamentally interpreted across definitions, and how to measure complex concepts like the circular economy. 

Findings show that some circular economy definitions are disconnected from sustainability aims, and no definition provides clear and complete metrics. The review also ‘discovers’ established science of how to measure complex concepts in general. The review zooms in on measuring circular economy only after understanding the overarching domains of ‘circular economy’ and ‘measurement science’.

Contributions from this study are a revisioning of circular economy into a measurable and manageable sustainability concept. After all, sustainability is about reducing pressures on climate change, biodiversity, equity and alike; not about recycling. And, the circular economy promotes Reduce before Reuse, before Recycle.

This review-study demonstrates that a broader domain review informs the review of the narrow intersection.

The Petals of the Lotus

The Lotus Protocol gets its name from its ‘holistic’ approach and the visual structure of its mapping logic. Instead of PRISMA’s linear funnel, the Lotus protocol maps knowledge like overlapping petals of a lotus flower. The petals are actually a Venn-diagram visualising knowledge domain intersections.

The Lotus Protocol provides a rigorous, systematic steps to synthesize evidence through three distinct phases:

  1. Conceptual Exploration: Researchers map out the "petals." They define the domains and identify how they intersect. This creates an overview of the multi-domain challenge.
  2. Corpora Creation: Instead of just looking at the centre, researchers systematically gather literature for all relevant domains and their various intersections, building a comprehensive database of knowledge.
  3. Contribution Capture: Researchers critically review these areas up to the point of "theoretical saturation": the point at which no new insights emerge. This allows them to map contributing theories from one domain to inform another.

Transforming the Literature Review

We tested and demonstrated the efficacy of the Lotus Protocol methodology for a multidisciplinary challenge. To study food waste mitigation, we reviewed domains and intersections of food waste, behavioural change, mobile applications and revenue models.

We reviewed each domain (as the Lotus petals) and intersections, which identified that many ambitious tech solutions lacked business strategies. Most tech had also overlooked foundational theories from behavioural science and overconsumption theory, which made them less effective. Much of the research and practice seeks narrow optimisation, while missing the synergy of integrating different knowledge domains.

Ultimately, the Lotus Protocol can prevent the tunnel vision that other systematic literature protocols describe. The Lotus protocol transforms an exercise in academic housekeeping into a powerful piece of translational research. The Lotus Protocol provides systematic steps to synthesise evidence across multiple knowledge domains, yielding holistic, evidence-based insights that we desperately need to address Grand Challenges.

The full paper of the Lotus Protocol is published in the journal ‘Psychology & Marketing’ and is open-access available. The paper provides further information on the protocol benefits, steps and examples. The research was conducted by RMIT researchers and two globally established scholars on literature reviews. The research is an output from the End Food Waste (Reduce) CRC grant with Gander Retail.

About

Article written by Bart Van Bueren

The Lotus Paper was co‑authored by Dr Kevin Argus, CRC End Food Waste Reduce Grant Lead.

01 June 2026

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01 June 2026

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