The National Development Plan (NDP) highlights the critical role of science, technology, and innovation in tackling South Africa’s pressing social challenges. Researchers are increasingly encouraged to focus on producing research and innovation outcomes that are ethically sound, sustainable, and aligned with societal needs and values. Engaged research has emerged as a key framework to achieve this, emphasising collaborative and participatory knowledge co-creation between researchers and stakeholders such as communities, civil society, government agencies, industry, and the public. This approach contrasts with traditional research methods by fostering continuous engagement throughout the research cycle, which enhances the relevance, uptake, and societal impact of research. A central driver of this shift towards engaged research is the growing emphasis on research impact — ensuring that research investments yield tangible benefits to society by influencing products, processes, services, and public issues. Engaged research facilitates this by enabling co-production of knowledge, where stakeholders are involved in shaping research questions, methods, and interpretations, thus ensuring readiness to apply the findings. The Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) are committed to advancing engaged research within South Africa’s National System of Innovation (NSI). However, efforts have often been fragmented. To address this, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) has launched the Mainstreaming Engaged Research through the NSI project, aimed at developing a cohesive strategy to promote and integrate engaged research within the NSI. The project consists of two connected streams of work.