TRUST Marker for Co-development — Solution Co-Development Toolkit

The TRUST Marker is an assessment of co-development practices designed in conjunction with the NASA Earth Action Solution Co-Development Toolkit. The marker complements — but is distinct from — NASA's Application Readiness Levels (ARLs) by evaluating the co-development, partnership, adoption, and sustainability conditions that support successful operational transition and long-term societal value. While ARLs primarily assess technical and application maturity, the TRUST Marker focuses on the relational, operational, and institutional dimensions that influence whether Earth science solutions are trusted, relevant, adoptable, and sustained. The Co-Development Toolkit provides the framework and tools by which applications can address all components of the TRUST Marker.

TRUST represents Trust-building, Relevance, User Partnership, Sustainability, and Transition & Impact. The framework helps teams assess and strengthen the depth, quality, and continuity of co-development across different project contexts and dimensions of development. The TRUST Marker is intended to support realistic planning, reflection, and continuous improvement by helping teams identify opportunities to strengthen stakeholder engagement, collaborative design, operational integration, and long-term implementation.

Importantly, the TRUST Marker is not intended to function as a parallel readiness-level scale nor to prescribe a fixed sequence of co-development phases. TRUST dimensions may be present to varying degrees at any ARL or stage of development, and teams may revisit stakeholder needs, workflows, governance structures, and implementation approaches throughout the lifecycle of a project. Rather than measuring technical readiness, the TRUST Marker evaluates the depth and integration of co-development practices that support successful operational use and sustained societal value.

TRUST Dimensions

Dimension	Meaning
T — Trust-building	Relationships, credibility, continuity of engagement
R — Relevance	Alignment with operational realities and stakeholder workflows and priorities
U — User Partnership	Degree of co-ownership and collaborative influence on design
S — Sustainability	Institutionalization, continued use, commence transition to end user
T — Transition & Impact	Transition success, evidence of improved decisions, resilience, efficiency, or societal outcomes

TRUST Levels

The TRUST Levels describe a continuum of co-development maturity and depth across the five TRUST Marker dimensions. The levels are intended to support reflection, engagement, readjustment, planning, communication, and realistic steps toward integration of stronger and more sustained co-development in applied science. Projects may operate at different levels across different dimensions simultaneously.

Level 0

Internally Defined

Activities are primarily internally driven, with limited or informal consideration of stakeholder perspectives, operational contexts, or long-term use. Co-development practices may be minimal, exploratory, or not intentionally structured.

Level 1

Stakeholder-Informed

Stakeholder perspectives, needs, or feedback inform project direction, priorities, or design decisions, typically through intermittent consultation, outreach, or targeted engagement activities.

Level 2

Collaborative

Stakeholders are active partners who regularly participate in co-design, iterative development, planning, or evaluation processes, helping shape project activities, workflows, and outputs.

Level 3

Operationally Integrated

Co-development practices are fully integrated into all aspects of project implementation, and the transition plan is supporting usability, adoption, continuity, and sustained engagement.

Level 4

Sustained & Transformative

Stakeholders have shared stewardship or transition to full ownership of solutions and demonstrate sustained use, institutional integration, or evidence of long-term organizational, community, or societal value appropriate to the project context.

TRUST Marker Matrix open editable template

TRUST Dimension	0 Internally Defined	1 Stakeholder-Informed	2 Collaborative	3 Operationally Integrated	4 Sustained & Transformative
Trust-building	Internal assumptions about stakeholder needs and priorities	Initial or intermittent stakeholder consultation and relationship-building	Ongoing regular engagement and iterative communication	Shared accountability and joint decision-making	Long-term trusted partnerships and sustained collaboration
Relevance	Generalized or internally defined problem framing without stakeholder input	Stakeholder needs and decision contexts identified	User workflows and operational realities incorporated into solution design	Solutions aligned with operational implementation needs and constraints	Solutions continuously adapted to evolving stakeholder needs
User Partnership	Users primarily informed about activities or outputs	Stakeholder feedback solicited periodically	Stakeholders actively participate in co-design and iterative development	Shared implementation, planning, and adaptation processes	Shared ownership, governance, or long-term stewardship of solutions
Sustainability	Long-term use and support not yet considered	Initial discussions of adoption, maintenance, or continuity	Transition planning and capacity-building activities initiated	Institutional integration and operational support structures established	Sustained operational support, continuity, and long-term institutional commitment
Transition & Impact	Anticipated benefits or intended applications identified	Intended operational use cases and pathways documented	Early evidence of adoption, usability, or stakeholder value	Operational use and implementation outcomes documented	Full transition and ongoing stewardship, with demonstrated long-term value

Using the TRUST Marker with the Co-Development Toolkit

The TRUST Marker is intended to be used alongside the Co-Development Toolkit as both a planning and reflection framework. While the toolkit provides practical methods, activities, and resources for conducting co-development, the TRUST Marker helps teams assess the depth, maturity, and operational integration of those practices over time.

Teams can use the TRUST Marker at the beginning of a project to identify realistic starting points and targets across the TRUST dimensions and to clarify where additional effort, engagement, or partnership-building may be needed. During project implementation, the framework can support periodic reflection and adaptive planning by helping teams identify gaps, track progress, and prioritize next steps appropriate to their project stage, stakeholder relationships, and operational context.

Rather than attempting to advance uniformly across all dimensions, teams are encouraged to focus on the areas most relevant to their project goals and stakeholder needs. For example:

Early-stage teams operating at early TRUST levels may prioritize toolkit activities focused on stakeholder mapping, needs assessment, relationship-building, and understanding decision contexts.

Teams seeking to strengthen collaboration may emphasize co-design workshops, iterative feedback processes, participatory evaluation, or workflow integration activities.

Teams preparing for operational transition may focus on implementation planning, training, governance discussions, sustainability planning, or documenting evidence of usability and impact.

Teams working toward sustained and transformative outcomes may prioritize long-term impacts monitoring, institutional integration strategies, and approaches for measuring societal and/or economic value over time.

Note: The TRUST Marker is not intended as a compliance checklist or scoring system. Instead, it is designed to help teams intentionally align co-development activities with project context, stakeholder priorities, operational realities, and pathways toward sustained use and impact — the ultimate goal of incorporating co-development practices.