Transdisciplinarity for Transformation (T4T)

We are a community of practice that exchanges experiences about how to do caring and meaningful sustainability research together with societal actors and in diverse places across the world.

During the last decades, transdisciplinary research has started to grow into a common research approach in sustainability science and social-ecological research. By engaging actors outside of academia to be partners in co-designing research and co-producing knowledge it holds the promise of supporting transformative change. In practice, however, transdisciplinary researchers struggle with how to enable meaningful societal engagements with scarce resources, keep up with the scientific achievements of their peers and take care of their own health in this process. It is time to not only call for more participation, but to deeply reflect and learn how to conduct transdisciplinary research in a responsible and impactful way that contributes to urgently needed transformative change.

In this working group, we gather researchers that use different transdisciplinary research approaches in diverse places across the world in order to learn from each other in an open and supportive environment. We will curiously explore how we can strengthen the capacity of transdisciplinary research to contribute to transformative change and sustainable futures in social-ecological systems. We will host meetings about different transdisciplinary methods and related approaches, such as living labs, transition experiments, action research and community-based research, to understand how they can contribute in different ways to fostering transformative change.

The working group originated from previous reflections and collaborations between early career researchers, which led to a blog series and a conceptual paper.

Working Group Coordinators:

• My Sellberg – Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden
• David P. M. Lam – Leuphana University Lüneburg
• Jessica Cockburn –  Rhodes University, South Africa

Working Group Participants:

• Petra Holden – University of Cape Town, South Africa
• Megan Davies – Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Matthew Weaver – Rhodes University, South Africa
• Marianne Falardeau-Côté – Laval University, Canada
• Aisa O. Manlosa – Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, Germany
• Roderick Juba – Water Research Commission & Rhodes University, South Africa
• Klara Johanna Winkler – McGill University, Canada
• Wandile (Paulose) Mvulane – Rhodes University, South Africa
• Ancois de Villiers – Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Nadia Sitas – Stellenbosch University, South Africa
• Gardiana Bandeira Melo – University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica
• Paola Vázquez-Delfín – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
• Rebecca Laycock Pedersen – University of Calgary, Canada; Lund University, Sweden