Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges

Abstract

Sponsorship: NERC RONO: NE/I004351/1There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory research approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal-typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research.Peer reviewe

Societal transformation in response to global environmental change: A review of emerging concepts

“…Vagueness can be a barrier to successful transdisciplinary processes (Lang et al 2012), and rigor is not necessarily a barrier to problemsolving research approaches (Strunz 2012). The major risk in this respect is of co-opting powerful actors to impose their own definition of transformation, and potentially to legitimize vested interests to serve different discourses, including those against radical change of the status quo (Tanner and Bahadur 2013).…”

Conceptualizing sustainable consumption: toward an integrative framework

“…1 The focal topic consists of ten project groups with a total of 28 subprojects and an accompanying research project (for more detailed information on the focal 1 SÖF and the focal topic belong to the field of sustainability science as they pursue the goal of investigating societal problems using an inter-and transdisciplinary approach to generate knowledge that contributes to shaping sustainable development (Lang et al 2012). For more information, see http://www.sozialoekologische-forschung.org/en/947.php.…”

How can landscape ecology contribute to sustainability science?

“…Reflective papers on the progress in sustainability research have produced important insights in key features and enabling factors that determine how science may contribute to transitions towards sustainability (Lang et al 2012;Miller 2013;Miller et al 2014;Fischer et al 2015;Balvanera et al 2017 andSchäpke et al 2017). For landscape ecologists, we think the following four insights are of particular relevance.…”