TD Trends and Tenders and Growing Diversity

The transdisciplinary and transformative research landscape is becoming increasingly colourful. Especially research approaches that include real-world interventions or experiments to facilitate real-world changes have been in vogue for some years now. This is, for example, reflected in the growing number of established Real-World Laboratories as well as in numerous proposals for fleshing out new research formats. Many of these contributions stipulate a co-leadership of non-scientific and scientific actors as well as the joint definition of a topic, frequently including the guiding question. In contrast to ‘conventional’ TD research approaches, implementing and ac-companying interventions or so-called real-world experiments are discussed as a stand-alone feature in these ‘newer’ research approaches. This diversity contributes to a new convolutedness of the field. It is increasingly challenging to maintain an overview and not to be guided primarily by trends and tenders when deciding on a research approach.

Call for Systematic Orientation

Therefore, the workshop aims to discuss which criteria help to decide which of those approaches is the most appropriate one for a research project. The workshop will bring together experts from the community on conceptual work and empirical analysis of different transdisciplinary and trans-formative research approaches, as well as action research and applied disciplinary research. Taking intervention-based approaches (e.g. Urban Transition Labs, Real-World Laboratories and Living Labs) as a starting point, the workshop aims for a comprehensive multi-criteria table offer-ing guidance for scholars and practitioners looking for appropriate research approaches for their specific purposes. The workshop thereby addresses the conference’s methodological innovation stream, contributing, inter alia, to the question of how different types of transdisciplinary pedagog-ies, research methods and processes of co-production can be developed to more effectively con-tribute to societal transformations.

(Mis)Matches between Research Problems, Goals, Conditions and Chosen Approaches

A carefully considered decision on the most appropriate research approach is essential: For in-stance, the research practice of Real-World Laboratories place extensive demands on all actors involved and is characterised by a highly resource-intensive operation whose progress and out-comes are by definition variable and impossible to plan comprehensively. In addition, institutional, personnel, time and financial framework conditions can enable or hamper a long-term successful joint work of practice and science at eye level; also, the specific goals pursued should play a de-cisive role when deciding on a project’s research approach. Equally, the nature and complexity of the initial problem is important: Neither a research gap without direct reference to ‘real-world problems’ nor an inherent deficit in implementation as such require the choice of the Real-World Laboratory approach. It also does not seem to be appropriate, for example, to set up a Real-World Laboratory if the intervention cannot have an innovative character due to high risk aversion among the participating actors.

The example of Real-World Laboratories shows that many factors need to be considered when choosing the right approach from the highly fragmented transdisciplinary and transformative field. Against this background, we ask what exactly constitutes the various types of collaborative re-search approaches and propose a preliminary matrix that can guide decisions on whether or not to design an application-oriented research project as a particular type.

Workshop Design

Aims

• To identify factors that guide the selection of the most appropriate research approach

• To systematically discuss similarities and differences of transdisciplinary and transforma-tive research approaches regarding these factors

• To work with the workshop participants’ expertise and experiences in respective research approaches

• To further develop and multi-perspectively validate a comprehensive ‘matrix’

• Workshop results may feed into the development of a decision tree and a joint publication

Targeted Participants

• Experienced researchers and practitioners interested in and familiar with empirical sus-tainability research and research designs

• We seek a comprehensive bandwidth, including among others applied disciplinary re-search, TD Case Studies, Living Labs, Urban Transition Labs, and Action Research

• Scholars and practitioners with a special focus on intervention-based collaborative re-search processes are particularly welcome