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Over the past decades, we have witnessed calls for greater transdisciplinary engagement between scientific and societal actors to develop more robust answers to complex societal challenges. Although there seems to be agreement that these approaches might nurture innovations of a new kind, we know little regarding the research practices, their potential, and the limitations. To fill this gap, this article investigates a funding scheme in the area of transdisciplinary sustainability research. It offers a detailed analysis of the imaginaries and expectations on which the funding scheme rests and how researchers actually practice transdisciplinarity within the respective projects. Identifying three ideal typical models of science–society relations at work, attention is paid to how, where, and when societal and scientific arenas get (dis-)entangled. This article discusses (1) the tensions between classical academic values and efforts to open research to society, (2) the prevailing power structures that make societal participation challenging, (3) the importance of place and technopolitical cultures, and (4) how temporal project structures impede more radical openings to new ways of knowledge production. We finally emphasize that transdisciplinary knowledge production can only become a serious option for addressing societal challenges if broader changes are made to the knowledge regimes in place.

This article reports on an explorative investigation comparing the notions of future human-robot relationships of the participants of a user study who interacted with a humanoid robot for the first time on the one hand, and those of experts from the industry on the other hand. By means of in-depth interviews, data on the following topics was gathered from 52 user study participants and six experts: (1) quality of life, health, and security, (2) working conditions and employment, (3) education, (4) cultural context. A content analysis of the interview material derived five key aspects of the future "robotic society": (1) replacement, (2) competition, (3) safety and supervision, (4) increasing productivity, (5) cost and benefit assessment. Furthermore, a description of what makes a robot different from a machine or a human could be obtained. Additionally, the interviews were supplemented by two standardized questionnaires to measure the participants' general attitude and acceptance towards robots. The article highlights the difference regarding viewpoints and understandings of the future human-robot relationships between novice users and experts.

Abstract-This article reports on the results of a user study investigating the satisfaction of naïve users conducting two learning by demonstration tasks with the HOAP-3 robot. The main goal of this study was to gain insights on how to ensure a successful as well as satisfactory experience for naïve users. Participants performed two tasks: They taught the robot to (1) push a box, and to (2) close a box. The user study was accompanied by three pre-structured questionnaires, addressing the users' satisfaction with HOAP-3, the user's affect toward the robot following from the interaction, and the user's attitude towards robots. Furthermore, a retrospective think aloud was conducted to gain a better understanding of what influences the users' satisfaction in learning by demonstration tasks. The results stress that learning by demonstration is a promising approach for naïve users to learn the interaction with a robot, as a high task completion and final satisfaction rate could be observed. Moreover, the short term interaction with HOAP-3 led to a positive affect higher than the normative average on half of the female users.

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