Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science:
practice,principles, and challenges
Citation for published version (APA):
Lang, D. J., Wiek, A., Bergmann, M., Stauffacher, M., Martens, P., Moll, P., Swilling, M., & Thomas, C. J.
(2012). Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice,principles, and challenges.
Sustainability Science, 7, 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0149-x
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Published: 01/02/2012
DOI:
10.1007/s11625-011-0149-x
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SPECIAL FEATURE: ORIGINAL ARTICLE Sustainability science: bridging the gap
between science and society
Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice,
principles, and challenges
Daniel J. Lang
•
Arnim Wiek
•
Matthias Bergmann
•
Michael Stauffacher
•
Pim Martens
•
Peter Moll
•
Mark Swilling
•
Christopher J. Thomas
Received: 5 October 2011 / Accepted: 12 December 2011 / Published online: 4 February 2012
Springer 2012
Abstract There 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 avail-
able knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as
create ownership for problems and solution options. Trans-
disciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory
research approachesare 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 transfor-
mational 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–typ-
ical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthe-
sizes 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.
Keywords Transdisciplinary sustainability research
Design principles Challenges Evaluation
Introduction
Water scarcity, epidemics, climate change, natural and man-
made disasters, violent conflicts, rapid urbanization—often
Handled by Francesca Farioli, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.
D. J. Lang (&) M. Bergmann P. Martens
Institute of Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability
Research, Faculty Sustainability, Leuphana University
of Lu
¨
neburg, Scharnhorststr. 1, 21335 Lu
¨
neburg, Germany
e-mail: daniel.lang@leuphana.de
A. Wiek
School of Sustainability, Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ 85287-5502, USA
M. Bergmann
Institute for Social-Ecological Research,
Hamburger Allee 45, 60486 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
M. Stauffacher
Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED),
Natural and Social Science Interface (NSSI), ETH Zurich,
CHN J74.1, Universita
¨
tstrasse 22, 8092 Zu
¨
rich, Switzerland
P. Martens
International Centre for Integrated Assessment
and Sustainable Development (ICIS), Maastricht University,
P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
P. Moll
Science Development, Hagenauer Str. 30,
42107 Wuppertal, Germany
M. Swilling
School of Public Leadership, University of Stellenbosch,
P.O. Box 610, Bellville 7535, South Africa
C. J. Thomas
Institute of Biological, Environmental
and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University,
3.30, Edward Llwyd Building, Penglais, Wales, UK
123
Sustain Sci (2012) 7 (Supplement 1):25–43
DOI 10.1007/s11625-011-0149-x
entailing problems such as air pollution or social segrega-
tion—and many other persistent and complex challenges
are threatening the viability and integrity of our global
societies (Kates and Parris 2003; Rockstro
¨
m et al. 2009).
These challenges have spawned a broad variety of societal
responses from industries, universities, and civil society
organizations. Academia has prominently responded
through the initiation of a new field of research, namely,
sustainability science, since the late 1990s (Kates et al.
2001; Clark and Dickson 2003; Swart et al. 2004;
Komiyama and Takeuchi 2006; Martens 2006; Jerneck
et al. 2011; Wiek et al. 2011, 2012). As a problem- and
solution-oriented field, sustainability science is inter alia
inspired by concepts of post-normal, mode-2, triple helix,
and other science paradigms (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993;
Gibbons et al. 1994; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000) that
employ corresponding research practices, such as trans-
disciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory
approaches (Kasemir et al. 2003; Savan and Sider 2003;
Becker 2006; Robinson and Tansey 2006; Hirsch Hadorn
et al. 2006; Jahn 2008; Scholz et al. 2006; Scholz 2011).
These practices have in common that they focus on
research collaborations among scientists from different
disciplines and non-academic stakeholders from business,
government, and the civil society in order to address sus-
tainability challenges and develop solution options. In the
ground-breaking article on sustainability science by Kates
et al. (2001), it reads accordingly that ‘‘participatory pro-
cedures involving scientists, stakeholders, advocates,
active citizens, and users of knowledge are critically nee-
ded’’ (p. 641). Key arguments for this new type of research
collaboration that transcends disciplinary and interdisci-
plinary approaches are the following: first, research on
complex sustainability problems requires the constructive
input from various communities of knowledge to ensure
that the essential knowledge from all relevant disciplines
and actor groups related to the problem is incorporated;
second, research on solution options requires knowledge
production beyond problem analysis, as goals, norms, and
visions need to provide guidance for transition and inter-
vention strategies; third, collaborative efforts between
researchers and non-academic stakeholders promises to
increase legitimacy, ownership, and accountability for the
problem, as well as for the solution options (Funtowicz and
Ravetz 1993; Gibbons et al. 1994; Hirsch Hadorn et al.
2006; Baumga
¨
rtner et al. 2008; Wiek 2009; Talwar et al.
2011; Spangenberg 2011).
While the field of sustainability science has been grow-
ing and gaining institutional momentum, a large body of
literature on transdisciplinary, community-based, interac-
tive, and participatory research approaches as well as
empirical projects has been generated. Noteworthy, initial
sets of principles, quality criteria, and success factors have
been compiled for some of the aforementioned approaches
(Rotmans and Van Asselt 1996; Bergmann et al. 2005; Pohl
and Hirsch Hadorn 2007; Defila et al. 2006; Blackstock
et al. 2007; Regeer et al. 2009; Wiek 2009; Scholz 2011;
Brundiers and Wiek 2011). Yet, the literature is rather
fragmented and dispersed, without providing good guidance
to interested researchers and practitioners on what can be
learned from the different approaches and what needs to be
considered when planning and carrying out transdisciplin-
ary sustainability research. In particular, a synthesis of
experience-based guidelines that draws from various
strands of the literature and practical experiences on how to
do transdisciplinary research and make it possible to
familiarize oneself with key components and guiding
principles is missing. Such synthesis would have the addi-
tional obligation (apart from the benefit of compilation) to
review and scrutinize the empirical evidence for such
guidelines of transdisciplinary research (Klein 2008; Wiek
2009). It is important to recognize the significance of this
question, as transdisciplinary research and similar collabo-
rative approaches are not uncontested outside transdisci-
plinary research communities. Arguing from a more
conventional research perspective, scientists might be
skeptical with respect to reliability, validity, and other
epistemological and methodological aspects of collabora-
tive research (‘‘credibility’’). Practitioners and stakeholders,
on the other hand, might be skeptical regarding the practical
relevance of the results (‘‘salience’’). Experience-based
guidelines that build upon demonstrated success (and fail-
ures) and satisfy all parties involved in transdisciplinary
research are needed (Cash et al. 2003). Finally, transdisci-
plinary research in its strong version goes beyond the
‘‘primacy of science’’ as well as the ‘‘primacy of practice,’’
establishing a third epistemic way (Wiek 2007; Jahn 2008).
For this, guidelines are needed in order to reliably demar-
cate transdisciplinary research from numerous approaches
that either use laypersons inputs in scientific research
(‘‘primacy of science’’) or provide classical decision sup-
port (‘‘primacy of practice’’) (Robinson 2003; Bergmann
et al. 2005). As the aim of this article is to emphasize
commonalities among transdisciplinary, participatory, and
collaborative research approaches rather than highlighting
differences and as an in-depth elaboration on different
notions of transdisciplinarity (see, e.g., Pohl and Hirsch
Hadorn 2007; Thompson Klein 2010; Scholz 2011)is
beyond the scope of this article, we apply a broad definition
of transdisciplinarity that reads as follows:
1
Transdisciplinarity is a reflexive, integrative, method-
driven scientific principle aiming at the solution or
1
Adapted from Matthias Bergmann’s presentation at the launching
conference of the International Network for Interdisciplinarity and
Transdisciplinarity (INIT) in Utrecht, The Netherlands, June 2011.
26 Sustain Sci (2012) 7 (Supplement 1):25–43
123
transition of societal problems and concurrently of
related scientific problems by differentiating and
integrating knowledge from various scientific and
societal bodies of knowledge.
This definition highlights that transdisciplinary research
needs to comply with the following requirements:
(a) focusing on societally relevant problems; (b) enabling
mutual learning processes among researchers from dif-
ferent disciplines (from within academia and from other
research institutions), as well as actors from outside aca-
demia; and (c) aiming at creating knowledge that is
solution-oriented, socially robust (see, e.g., Gibbons
1999), and transferable to both the scientific and societal
practice. With regards to the latter, it is important to
consider that transdisciplinarity can serve different func-
tions, including capacity building and legitimization
(Scholz 2011).
The purpose of this article is twofold: first, we provide
an initial compilation of design principles for transdisci-
plinary sustainability research that draws from various
strands of literature on collaborative research approaches
as well as on practical experience; second, we want to
breathe life into these principles through illustrative
examples of challenges to comply with them in sustain-
ability science as encountered in transdisciplinary projects
in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and
Asia. The latter allows the reader to gain in-depth insights
into the actual application of these principles in empirical
sustainability research and is also a step toward empiri-
cally substantiating the design principles. In order to make
the design principles as easily accessible and applicable as
possible, we propose and explore them from a practice-
oriented or praxeological perspective. This means the
design principles are presented as close as possible to the
actual research process (Bergmann et al. 2005;Bergmann
and Jahn 2008;Wiek2009), similar to a recent model of
public participation (Kru
¨
tli et al. 2010b) or the design
principles for community-based natural resource man-
agement (Cox et al. 2010). Thus, we start with a con-
ceptual model that structures the transdisciplinary process
in three phases (see ‘‘Concept of an ideal–typical trans-
disciplinary research process’’), then link generic design
principles to these phases (see ‘‘Design principles for
transdisciplinary research in sustainability science’’), and,
finally, explore challenges of complying with the princi-
ples in each of the three phases in elaborating on the
experiences we gained in various projects in the field of
sustainability science (see ‘‘Challenges of transdisciplin-
ary research in sustainability science’’). The article con-
cludes with future research needed in order to further
enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability
research (see ‘‘Concluding remarks’’ ).
Concept of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary
research process
Key components of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary pro-
cess are here presented in order to position the derived
principles as accurately as possible within the actual
research practice. We rely in this article on a slightly
adapted version of an ideal–typical conceptual model (Jahn
2008), which has many similarities to other model pre-
sented in the literature (e.g., Scholz et al. 2006; Pohl and
Hirsch Hadorn 2007; Wiek 2009; Carew and Wickson
2010; Kru
¨
tli et al. 2010b; Stokols et al. 2010; Talwar et al.
2011). According to this model (Fig. 1), transdisciplinary
research in general and in sustainability science in partic-
ular is an ‘‘interface practice’’: first, it initiates from soci-
etally relevant problems that imply and trigger scientific
research questions; second, it relies on mutual and joint
learning processes between science and society embedded
in societal and scientific discourses (Siebenhu
¨
ner 2004). In
so doing, transdisciplinary research integrates two path-
ways to address ‘‘real world problems’’: one pathway is
committed to the exploration of new options for solving
societal problems (the path of problem solution, the left
‘‘arm’’ in Fig. 1); the other pathway is committed to the
development of interdisciplinary approaches, methods, and
general insights related to the problem field (the path of
scientific innovation, the right ‘‘arm’’ in Fig. 1), which are
crucial for the practical path (cf. Bergmann et al. 2010).
In the ideal–typical conceptual model presented in
Fig. 1, a transdisciplinary research process is conceptual-
ized as a sequence of three phases, including: collabora-
tively framing the problem and building a collaborative
research team (Phase A); co-producing solution-oriented
and transferable knowledge through collaborative research
(Phase B); and (re-)integrating and applying the produced
knowledge in both scientific and societal practice (Phase
C). Thereby, a main purpose of Phase A is to integrate ‘‘the
pathway of problem solution’’ and the ‘‘pathway of sci-
entific innovation’’ to allow for collaborative research in
Phase B (‘‘integrative research pathway’’), resulting in
transferable knowledge that can be (re-)integrated into the
societal and scientific practice in Phase C. Though the
model might indicate a rather linear process, individual
phases and the overall sequence often have to be performed
in an iterative or recursive cycle, also highlighting the need
for reflectivity in transdisciplinarity (see, e.g., Spangenberg
2011). In this article, we slightly adapt the original model
by: (a) changing the terminology to match the international
discourse in sustainability science and related fields and
(b) underlining the need for a deliberate design of the
collaboration between actors from academia or other
research institutions and actors from practice.
Sustain Sci (2012) 7 (Supplement 1):25–43 27
123
Phase A: Collaborative problem framing and building
a collaborative research team
This phase orients, frames, and enables the core research
process. It consists of several activities: identification and
description of the real-world problem; setting of an agreed-
upon research object, including the joint formulation of
research objectives and specific research- as well as soci-
etally-relevant questions; the design of a conceptual and
methodological framework for knowledge integration; and
the building of a collaborative research team. Essential in
this phase is that the real-world problem is translated into a
boundary object (see, e.g., Clark et al. 2011) that is both
researchable and allows for the re-integration of the
insights into societal implementation as well as the scien-
tific body of knowledge.
Phase B: Co-creation of solution-oriented
and transferable knowledge through
collaborative research
This phase is the actual doing of the research. In this phase,
a set of integrative (scientific) methods is adopted, further
developed, and applied to facilitate the differentiation and
integration of the different bodies of knowledge coming
together in the process. Concomitantly, a collaborative
research design allows for goal-oriented collaboration
among different disciplines, as well as between researchers
and actors from outside academia, in a functional and
dynamic way. For each step of the research process, it
needs to be defined who contributes what, supported by
which means and to what end (Kru
¨
tli et al. 2010a, b).
Thereby, it is important to consider different levels of
stakeholder involvement in the research process (Wiek
2007; Stauffacher et al. 2008; see the (red) zigzag line in
the center of Fig. 1).
Phase C: (Re-)integrating and applying the co-created
knowledge
This phase is the process of using, applying, and imple-
menting the research results. As different perspectives,
world views, values, and types of knowledge are integrated
over the course of the entire transdisciplinary research
process, this phase is not a classical form of knowledge
transfer from science to practice (van Kerkhoff and Lebel
2006; Talwar et al. 2011). It is, instead, a (re-)integration of
the results into: (a) the societal practice (e.g., implemen-
tation of the evidence-based strategies and action programs
generated during the research) and (b) the scientific prac-
tice (e.g., comparison, generalization, and incorporation of
results into the scientific body of literature). Apart from the
Fig. 1 Conceptual model of an
ideal–typical transdisciplinary
research process (adapted from:
Bergmann et al. 2005; Jahn
2008; Keil 2009; Bunders et al.
2010; there are several models
which outline transdisciplinary
research process in a similar
way: e.g., Scholz et al. 2006;
Pohl and Hirsch Hadorn 2007;
Wiek 2009; Carew and Wickson
2010; Kru
¨
tli et al. 2010b;
Stokols et al. 2010; Talwar et al.
2011)
28 Sustain Sci (2012) 7 (Supplement 1):25–43
123
