TY - JOUR

T1 - Towards a Real-world Laboratory

T2 - A Transdisciplinary Case Study from Lüneburg

AU - Bernert, Philip

AU - Haaser, Angelika

AU - Kühl, Lena

AU - Schaal, Tamara

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - Fostering sustainable community development and understanding social transformations are crucial topics in sustainability science. A new mode of research, real-world laboratories, are enabling the mutual engagement of science and society towards sustainability through transdisciplinary research. However, recent literature has paid little attention to the establishment of thesecollaborative research spaces. In our case study, we initiated a transdisciplinary research process in Lüneburg (involving participants from university, municipality, nongovernmental organizations and society at large) with the goal of creating a setting for a real-world laboratory. We combined qualitativescenario analysis and visioning. Our findings demonstrated that establishing real-world laboratories in a transdisciplinary process builds trust and commitment among the involved participants and forms a vital starting point for the institutionalization of future transdisciplinary collaboration and research. Therefore, our approach can serve as an impetus for other communities to engage in bottom-up collaboration towards sustainability transformations.

AB - Fostering sustainable community development and understanding social transformations are crucial topics in sustainability science. A new mode of research, real-world laboratories, are enabling the mutual engagement of science and society towards sustainability through transdisciplinary research. However, recent literature has paid little attention to the establishment of thesecollaborative research spaces. In our case study, we initiated a transdisciplinary research process in Lüneburg (involving participants from university, municipality, nongovernmental organizations and society at large) with the goal of creating a setting for a real-world laboratory. We combined qualitativescenario analysis and visioning. Our findings demonstrated that establishing real-world laboratories in a transdisciplinary process builds trust and commitment among the involved participants and forms a vital starting point for the institutionalization of future transdisciplinary collaboration and research. Therefore, our approach can serve as an impetus for other communities to engage in bottom-up collaboration towards sustainability transformations.

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - Real-world laboratory

KW - Social transformations

KW - Sustainable community development

KW - Transdisciplinary research

U2 - 10.14512/gaia.25.4.7

DO - 10.14512/gaia.25.4.7

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 25

SP - 253

EP - 259

JO - GAIA

JF - GAIA

SN - 0940-5550

IS - 4

ER -