SARA NINER School of Social Sciences, Monash University JOTHAM LAY Faculty of Engineering, Monash University NARELLE WARREN AND MICHAEL O’CONNELL School of Social Sciences, Monash University DANIEL EDGINGTON-MITCHELL Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University How development happens: Safe and sustain- able energy, community development projects, and implementation challenges in Timor-Leste This article describes how seed funding from one major Aus- tralian University, designed to en- courage interdisciplinary collabora- tions among academics, led to the implementation of a safe and sustainable energy supply at a com- munity development project in remote Timor-Leste. This article re- flects on the process, the results, and insights developed during the project primarily from the point of view of the academics. A partici- patory process of co-design was vir- tually impossible to implement due to time and resource constraints that barely allowed genuine col- laboration between academics. The consequent nurturing of a social relationship between partners across borders, which would have allowed a genuine process of co-design, was therefore not possible. Misunder- standings around the local con- text, tensions in understandings of timelines, and competing priorities all provided additional barriers to timely implementation of the devel- opment project. The final conclusion is that even with the best of inten- tions, if resource constraints do not allow the time and space to develop collaborative social relations and pri- oritize “process over product,” then genuine partnerships and participa- tory development have little chance of flourishing. Introduction P ossessing local knowledge is a key element for project success in engineering development projects. The most common reason for failure of projects by international NGO “Engineers With- out Borders” was “lacking contextual knowledge” (Wood and Mattson ). With this in mind, a new academic project sought to examine the proposition that an interdisci- plinary approach, recognizing key social aspects, would avoid this pitfall. This article discusses the challenges encountered during the implementation of a seed-funded project, designed to en- courage interdisciplinary collaborations among academics from engineering and the social sciences at one major Australian Uni- versity. The main research objective was to combine the technical or “hard” facets of design undertaken by engineers, with the so- cial or “soft” considerations usually addressed by anthropologists familiar with local cultures, social structures, practices, and in- stitutions. While this eventually led to the implementation of a safe and sustainable energy supply at a local NGO (the Leublora Green School in remote Timor-Leste) through multiple local collaborations, the journey was protracted and outcomes were unexpected. We discuss this in the following. The final project was substantially different to that conceptual- ized in the original research proposal due to its bumpy transition into a real-world project. The interdisciplinary academic part- nership between anthropologists—who provided methodologi- cal insights and information on the local social and economic context—and engineers—who provided technical design and implementation—also involved partnerships with a local com- munity organization—the beneficiaries—and local technicians at a local technical training institute. The project was faced with successive challenges associated with a complex cross-cultural ANNALS OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRACTICE, Vol. , No. , pp. –, ISSN -, online ISSN -. C by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: ./napa.