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Introduction
I have an interdisciplinary background spanning sustainability studies, ecological economics, and political sciences. My work is focusing on governance of sustainability transformations, transdisciplinarity and human agency. My theoretical interest centers on settings, methods and principles of action-oriented sustainability science, dynamics of human agency and spaces for societal learning and change. Empirically I build on accompanying research, transdisc. case studies and literature reviews.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (80)
In sustainability science, the tension between more descriptive–analytical and more process-oriented
approaches is receiving increasing attention. The latter entails a number of roles for researchers, which have largely been neglected in the literature. Based on the rich tradition of action research and on a specific process-oriented approach to su...
The most critical question for climate research is no longer about the problem, but about how to facilitate the transformative changes necessary to avoid catastrophic climate-induced change. Addressing this question, however, will require massive upscaling of research that can rapidly enhance learning about transformations. Ten essentials for guidi...
There are growing claims that meaningfully engaging with complex sustainability challenges requires change of a systemic nature. In governing transitions to sustainability, laboratories in real world contexts are growing in presence and promise. Yet, they span an array of contexts, conceptualisations and cases, making it difficult to find and relat...
Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we use...
Sustainability science needs more systematic approaches for mobilizing knowledge in support of interventions that may bring about transformative change. In this Perspective, we contend that action-oriented knowledge for sustainability emerges when working in integrated ways with the many kinds of knowledge involved in the shared design, enactment a...
This chapter provides and introduction to accompanying research as a complement to support and research work in real-world laboratories. It present core aims, principles and methods of accompayning research and an example for research at the UN Climate Conferences.
In this paper, we examine the role of trust in the international climate negotiations. We (1) identify forms of trust inferred from institutional designs, (2) analyse effects of institutional design on social and political trust and (3) describe the relationship between social and political trust in international climate change negotiations. We do...
Societal transformations, as fundamental change of socio-ecological and socio-technical systems towards more sustainability and justice, are high on scientific and political agendas. Transformational sustainability research seeks to understand and develop solutions to persistent problems of unsustainability. Examples include real-world and urban li...
Transdisciplinary research (TDR) seeks to involve non-academic perspectives from the start, ensuring that research draws on diverse knowledge to better address “wicked” problems. Since TDR researchers have to engage with non-academic perspectives throughout the research process, this chapter focuses on the kind of communication practices that are a...
1. This policy brief shines light on the complex interplay
of trauma, societal polarization, multiple ongoing
crises, and democracy. It highlights the need for a
comprehensive sensemaking approach in times of
crises and offers a new perspective on understanding
collective trauma in the context of democracy.
2. Key findings derived from the trauma-...
Transdisciplinary academic work, which involves co-developing knowledge with practice to tackle pressing societal and ecological issues, is increasingly advocated by policymakers, academics, funders, and research organisations. This approach not only enhances the understanding of these problems but also aids in devising practical solutions. However...
Real-world laboratories (RwLs) are gaining further traction as a means to achieve systemic impacts towards sustainability transformation. To guide the analysis of intended impacts, we introduce the concept of leverage points, discerning where, how, and to what end RwLs intervene in systems. Building on conceptual reasoning, we further develop our a...
Real-world labs are witnessing continued growth and institutionalization in the field of transformation-oriented sustainability research, as well as in adjacent disciplines. With their experimental research agendas, these labs aim at sustainability transformations, however, there is still a need to improve the understanding of their impacts. Drawin...
In sustainability transitions research, the deliberate destabilisation of socio-technical regimes is increasingly recognised as a central intervention point. Absent, however, are granular approaches for assessing whether regime destabilisation actually occurs in processes of systemic change. We propose to assess regime destabilisation through shift...
This RIFS discussion paper presents preliminary insights from transdisciplinary research on the Co-Creative Reflection and Dialogue Space (CCRDS) implemented at the 25 th, 26 th and 27 th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP). The transformative research design and findings from over six year...
There has been a recent proliferation of research and practice on the interior dimensions of sustainability, such as values, beliefs, worldviews and inner capacities. This nascent field of inner transformation is dynamic and emerging, with varied terminology, a breadth of applications, and intense debate about possible contributions as well as limi...
Der Beitrag erläutert Grundlagen von Reallaboren, ihre Ziele und Charakteristika in allgemeinverständlicher Form.
Monitoring, Anpassungen und Engagement Reallabore bedienen sich Interventionen, um Ideen für ein nachhaltigeres Leben zu erproben und Veränderungen zur Nach-haltigkeit vor Ort voranzubringen. Gesell-schaftliche und wissenschaftliche Akteure setzen diese Interventionen oft gemeinsam um-gesellschaftliches Engagement ist zu ihrem Gelingen zentral. Es...
The international UN Climate Change conferences known as “Conferences of the Parties (COPs)” have an enormous convening power and are attended annually by tens of thousands of actors working on climate change topics from a wide range of perspectives. In the COP spaces outside of the formal negotiations, the communication culture is dominated by “si...
After almost 10 years of research and action in Real-world Labs (RwLs), this special issue of GAIA aims to present and analyse the current state of the art of methodology, scope and objectives in RwL research. In particular, we invite empirical evidence and reflection on the impacts of RwLs on sustainability transformations. This special issue was...
The complexity and dynamics of current crises pose major challenges to democracy. In crises, fears grow and social polarization increases. Crises also evoke personal and collective traumatic memories. Finding orientation
and cohesion becomes an urgent task for the preservation of democracy.
The research question posed in this project is: Can unders...
Die Komplexität und Dynamik aktueller Krisen stellen die Demokratie vor große Herausforderungen. In Krisen wachsen Ängste und gesellschaftliche Polarisierungen nehmen zu. Auch persönliche und kollektive traumatische Erinnerungen werden durch Krisen wachgerufen. Orientierung und Zusammenhalt zu finden, wird für den Erhalt der Demokratie eine dringli...
Sustainability is high on the political agenda, with its analytical and practical importance underscored in the field of sustainability transitions. Experiments, arenas, and laboratories are frequently highlighted as real-world objects to investigate sustainability in place. Despite existing lab studies, attempts at comparison at the empirical leve...
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” This quote by Albert Einstein highlights our need for new formats of communication to address the knowledge-action gap regarding climate change and other sustainability challenges. This includes reflection, and communication spaces, as well as...
UN Climate Change conferences, known as “COPs,” are the primary international venue for negotiating how countries should act and cooperate to avoid dangerous climate change. Although the climate negotiations are a state government-led process, the need for engagement with non-governmental stakeholders in acknowledgement of the critical role in impl...
This paper outlines climate emergencies facing universities and, by drawing on research on system transition, provides insights about how change to overcome the challenges might be stewarded. Climate change brings three interconnected and urgent emergencies for universities: (1) Manifest emergencies such as risks to operations and business models;...
The transdisciplinary research mode has gained prominence in the research on and for sustainability transformations. Yet, solution-oriented research addressing complex sustainability problems has become complex itself, with new transdisciplinary research formats being developed and tested for this purpose. Application of new formats offers learning...
This article provides a rationale for inner transformation as a key and hitherto underresearched dimension of sustainability transformations. Inner transformation relates to various aspects of human existence and interactions such as consciousness, mindsets, values, worldviews, beliefs, spirituality and human–nature connectedness. The article draws...
Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we use...
Technological and policy solutions for transitioning to a fossil-free society exist, many countries could afford the transition, and rational arguments for rapid climate action abound. Yet effective action is still lacking. Dominant policy approaches have failed to generate action at anywhere near the rate, scale or depth needed to avoid potentiall...
“Our Future on Earth” aims to tell the story of where we are on our collective journey by connecting the dots between what society is currently experiencing – from fires to food shortages to a rise in populism – with recent developments in the research community.
Physical and social scientists have much to say about what is driving current events,...
Real-world labs have been proposed as a central catalyst to advance research
for sustainability and societal transformation. In Karlsruhe, the scientific community
presented new experiences and results from more than three years of pioneering
real-world lab research in Baden-Württemberg (BaWü-Labs) and discussed the
lessons learned with practitione...
Sustainability transitions research proposes fundamental changes of societal systems´ organization to overcome persistent societal challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity loss, and allowing systems to become more sustainable. This thesis addresses an underlying tension in sustainability transitions research: between transitions
as an ope...
This presentation was held as a part of defending my PhD Thesis. It provides an overview on the thesis, key questions and results.
Here the abstract of the thesis:
Sustainability transitions research proposes fundamental changes of societal systems´ organization to overcome persistent societal challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity lo...
The transformative research approach of Real-World Laboratories (RWL) has recently attracted attention in German sustainability science. Some definitions and understandings have been published, but guidelines and procedural quality criteria for establishing and running a RWL are still missing. To address this gap, this article has two aims. First i...
This includes an comprehensive review of publications on real-world labs and an overview on which publication is mentioning which RwL characteristic.
In addition, key readings on Sustainability Living Labs, Urban Transition Labs and Transformation Labs are provided.
At the science-society interface, new forms of experimental and
transdisciplinary research approaches, labelled as labs in the real world,
have been established to accelerate transformations towards more
sustain able societies and to transfer existing knowledge into action.
In this special issue funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts...
This includes detailed versions of the semantic maps depicted in the main text as well as a temporally differentiated semantic map. In addition, lists of most cited publications on Labs in the Real World in general (LRW) as well as sustainability related labs in particular (Sust LRW) are presented. In addition, two lists of all Real-world Laborator...
There is a strong trend towards research in society-based laboratories,
especially in relation to sustainability. Semantic analysis reveals related discourses
and emerging lines of inquiry, namely transformative potential, transdisciplinarity
and learning. Real-world laboratories are a dynamic example of this research.
Contributions of how to deepe...
There is a strong trend towards research in society-based laboratories,
especially in relation to sustainability. Semantic analysis reveals related discourses and emerging lines of inquiry, namely transformative potential, transdisciplinarity and learning. Real-world laboratories are a dynamic example of this research.
Contributions of how to dee...
Real-world laboratories (RwLs, German Reallabore) belong to a family of increasingly popular experimental and transdisciplinary research approaches at the science-society interface. As these approaches in general, and RwLs in particular, often lack clear definitions of key characteristics and their operationalization,
we make two contributions in t...
Urban areas provide space and place for experimentation
with sustain ability transitions in real-world laboratories.
Members of the existing urban laboratories in Baden-Württemberg
and experts have discussed the challenges of these
innovative research settings, as well as possible solutions.
Fig. 1 Cyclical concept for Wuppertal’s Real-World Laboratories (RWL).
Building on an overall normative orientation towards sustainable development, RWLs are depicted as being composed of science-practice interactions. The transdisciplinary and transformative research process in RWLs comprises three phases, co-design, co-production and co-evaluati...
Table 2: Eight key components of a Real-World Laboratory
Column 2 names the component, column 3 shows the origin of the component building on the reviewed literature on RWLs (chapter 1) and similar approaches (chapter 2). Column 4 lists further details and explanations of the component. Alphanumerical references refer to characteristics of related...
Table 1: Comparison of current research approaches in participatory real-world interaction according to selected criteria. Source: Wanner, Hilger, Westerkowski, Rose, Stelzer & Schäpke (in print): Towards a Cyclical Concept of Real-World Laboratories. A Transdisciplinary Research Practice for Sustainability Transitions.
Sustainability transitions as processes of fundamental change in societal systems are open-ended, nonlinear and uncertain. Respective research and governance approaches, e.g., transition management, propose a reflexive way of governing, aiming for a number of societal effects to help facilitating a transition. Effects include empowerment, social le...
A GAIA special issue will focus on reflections and empirical insights regarding
real-world laboratories. In order
to bring the growing research
community together and
to combine empirical evidence,
the guest editors hereby invite
colleagues to submit papers.
Reallabore sind derzeit ein populärer Forschungsansatz an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Neben vermuteten Potentialen, wie der Erzeugung von Transformationswissen und einem Beitrag zu gesellschaftlichem Wandel, gibt es auch vielfältige offene Fragen, u.a. im Hinblick auf das Verhältnis zu transdisziplinärer Forschung, der...
Real-world laboratories are growing in popularity promising a contribution to both: the understanding and facilitation of societal transformation towards sustainability. Baden-Württemberg substantially funds real-world labs as part of the initiative “science for sustainability”. To facilitate learning with and from these so-called BaWü-Labs, they a...
Real-world laboratories aim to create relevant and transferable knowledge and foster societal transformation towards sustainability. Members of the existing laboratories in Baden-Württemberg and experts have discussed the progress and the challenges of these innovative research settings.
In the face of persistent sustainability problems challenging economic development, ecological integrity as well as
social justice, transformational changes are crucial. Proposed changes shall include, for instance, large-scale transitions of practices, infrastructures as well as values and priorities. In Germany, real-world laboratories
are propos...
In order to achieve sustainable societies, we need models of behavior that go beyond individuals equating wellbeing and material consumption levels. Lowering individual footprints might be more acceptable once we include social relations, adopting responsibilities for other human and non-human life as well as civic engagement as complementary sourc...
Transitions towards sustainability are urgently needed to address the interconnected challenges of economic development, ecological integrity, and social justice from the local to the global level. Around the world, collaborative science-society initiatives have emerged that develop, test, and implement experiments in support of sustainability tran...
Scientific activities which are targeted to engage and enact on societal problems – and governance of sustainability transition itself is one such activity – are necessarily prescriptive endeavours, have to recognize the fundamental normativity of sustainable development, need to be based on a thick description of the issues to change, and should e...
This invited poster presentation gives and overview of approach and results of my PhD thesis.
The thesis has three steps:
It puts transition management into a larger picture to allow for a thick description of changes, including normative considerations.
It assesses the process and effects of two transition management case studies with regard to s...
Today’s society is facing a broad array of societal challenges, such as an unstable economic system, climate change and lasting poverty. There are no straightforward solutions, rather these challenges ask for fundamental societal changes, that is, sustainability transitions. Faced with the question of how these challenges can be understood and deal...
Sustainability transitions require altered individual behaviors. Policies aimed at changing people's consumption be-havior are designed according to efficiency, consistency, and sufficiency principles. Taking into account shortcomings of the first two principles, this paper specifically addresses the sufficiency principle. Sufficiency policies are...
In sustainability transitions, as answers to persistent problems and societal challenges,
local initiatives are assumed as having an important role. Their success is supposed to be
depended on a variety of drivers. Among others, social and particularly higher order
learning is proposed as a key instrument to deal with uncertainties and complexity i...
Policies for sustainability transitions necessarily have three main characteristics: they are
prescriptive with regard to dynamic societal processes, linked to the normativity of sustainable
development, and are able to interlink both the societal and the individual levels. Taking
transition management as a starting point, the paper elaborates that...
This article describes the working process of designing the new Master's program "Strategic Sustainability Management" at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. The focus is on competencies that are judged crucial for strategic sustainability management in the view of practitioners and science. Which know-ledge and capacities should...
This synthesis report gives and overview on the results of three years of action research, using transition management to address societal challenges on community level in three pilot projects.
Action research is the collaborative production of scientifically and socially
relevant knowledge through a participatory process. Real-life problems are
addressed and new theoretical insights gained. When aiming simultaneously for
social change and knowledge advancement, action research offers itself as a
suitable approach. Since in action researc...
The main motivation for sustainable development, as defined in the Brundtland report, is to care for other humans – for the world’s poor and for unborn people. Traditional economic models use the motivation to increase one’s own well-being as the main motivation for action. Efficiency-improvements, as the main focus of the economics-based models ha...
This report is part of the theoretical framework of the EU FP7 project InContext - Supportive Environments for Sustainable Living.
The common approach developed here is meant to form an orienting framework, which allows the partnering research institutes to make reference to and to make use of. Its focus is rather theoretical in contrast to the pr...
In this book (my master thesis) I use the Integral Theory of Wilber as a heuristic to critically reflect three contemporary theories of sustainable development with regard to different perspectices considered and underlying worldviews. Integral Theory proofed to be a suitable heuristic of holistic understanding. Results show that theories frequentl...
Die Millenniumserklärung und die in ihr enthaltenen Millennium-Entwicklungsziele
(MDGs) haben die Zustimmung so vieler Staaten und ihrer Regierungschefs gewonnen
wie kaum ein multilaterales Übereinkommen zuvor. Sie haben das Gesicht der
weltweiten Entwicklungszusammenarbeit verändert. Kritikern zufolge weichen die
MDGs jedoch hart errungene Beschlü...
This report presents the methodology and the results of a piloting study project at Leuphana University Lüneburg. During the project a transdisciplinary case study analysis was done following the methodology developed at ETH Zurich. The project was student led, advised by Leuphana faculty as well as an advisory board from civil society. Under the t...
Questions
Question (1)
Background: We are setting up a co-creative, action-oriented research project. We have about 5 month left to design an experimental intervention (think of it as a series of workshops) and are about 10 people, primarily researchers, collaborating. In later steps there probably will be stakeholders involved. We have slim resources and would like to make the most out of the project - as well in academic terms. The project takes place in the area of climate change negotiations.
Aim: We would like to a) generate data on the process that can be used for analysis/ publications and b) reflect on the process while we go along.
Question: Which effective, easy and (maybe even) fun ways do you know of tracing a co-creative, action-oriented research process?
Dimensions to trace include:
- reasonings and decisions on designing the project
- project design
- individual and collective learnings and insights (of the research team)
- team-work related aspects
I am happy for examples of projects, own insights/ reflections, or (actually) relevant articles.
Many thanks!
