Purpose: This poster addresses transdisciplinary research between scholars and practitioners who collaboratively strive to tackle real‐world sustainability problems on a regional level. It focuses on methods used to create new knowledge through involvement of different actors outside academia into
the entire research process.
Design/Methodology: We conducted an exploratory analysis of 1507 peer‐reviewed articles from the Scopus Database. All papers indicating at least two disciplines and one practitioner outside academia had been involved in the research project were included. Finally we evaluated 244 papers by at least two reader analysts using a standardized review‐protocol.
Findings: We demonstrate that both (1) a growing number of research settings involves non‐academia actors to some extent and that the term transdisciplinarity is used ever more often. However, we derive (2) that knowledge‐types are not connected to specific methods and certain methods are not meaningfully employed in specific research phases. The reviewed literature suggests instead that (3) non‐academic practitioners are mostly involved through different collaborative settings which often lack methodological rigor. Finally we conclude that (4) transdisciplinary research is still developing gauged on the low impact factor of current research.
Practical implications: Our review illustrates different challenges of transdisciplinary projects. It should encourage scholars to pursue involvement of non‐academic actors. Further research should focus on specific methodological tools (e.g. standardized research protocol) to increase effectiveness and comparability of transdisciplinary projects.
Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge our work presents the first systematic review of transdisciplinary projects in sustainability research. We contribute to strengthening the research agenda and highlight relevant challenges in transdisciplinary projects.