Transdisciplinary transformative change: An analysis of some best practices and barriers and the role of critical social science in getting us there

Abstract

Biodiversity experts now widely acknowledge that transformative change is best supported through transdisciplinary collaborations. Yet, such collaborations rarely successfully occur in major biodiversity research institutions and those that do rarely achieve the paradigmatic effects they aim to deliver. To gain some insight into this global phenomenon, we surveyed Swiss-based researchers, transdisciplinary collaborators, and other stakeholders addressing global change and biodiversity. In this article, we connect our findings to global patterns in transdisciplinary transformative change initiatives (TTCIs) and heuristically divide collaboration barriers into two categories: lack of resources and lack of vital functional elements. Two of the major themes that emerged from this research were the continued difficulties with 1) establishing a common ‘language’, understanding, and goals, and 2) meaningful pluralization of knowledge in transdisciplinary collaborations aimed at addressing global change and biodiversity loss. The former is widely cited in the literature as contributing to the failure of TTCIs in the form of incoherent problem-framing, while the latter is often identified as contributing to the lack of structural transformative change (e.g., paradigmatic shifts) in completed initiatives. Another major theme reflected in TTCI literature was limited time. Moreover, based on our own extensive inter- and transdisciplinary experience, we agree with other experts that there is a persistent lack of understanding of the potential contributions of critical social science (CSS) to TTCIs. We thus argue that enhancing resource availability for TTCIs, especially tools for improving CSS literacy, could save time and support both problem-framing alignment and delivery of the structural/paradigmatic changes we aspire to.

Looking at the Future of Transdisciplinary Research

“…There is a vast literature on transdisciplinary research, sometimes theoretical, but often also analysing experiences from concrete project work (for instance, Wickson et al, 2006;Russell et al, 2008;Carew and Wickson, 2010;Clark and Button, 2011;Pohl, 2011;Klein, 2013Klein, , 2015Wickson and Carew, 2014;Gethmann et al, 2015;Osborne, 2015;Bieluch et al, 2017;van Breda and Swilling, 2018;Pereira et al, 2018;de la Vega-Leinert and Schönenberg, 2020;Chambers et al, 2021;Deutsch et al, 2023). There is also literature which more implicitly relates to transdisciplinarity while highlighting other terms; for example, citizen science, co-production of knowledge, sustainability science, participatory research, Indigenous knowledge integration, empowerment or similar terms (e.g.…”

Achieving transformational change through the consilience of behavioral science and radical alternatives

“…This vision is underpinned by shorter-term goals that can be achieved through changes in social structures and human behavior. The complexity of meeting these goals and achieving transformational change requires a transdisciplinary perspective that is attuned to environmental justice implications of implementing such change (Wyborn et al 2021;Deutsch et al 2023;Obura 2023). A transdisciplinary perspective is particularly important given that contemporary social and environmental problems are rooted in political economic systems and manifested partly in human behaviors (Rosales 2008;IPBES 2019;McElwee et al 2020).…”