Wie entfalten Reallabore Wirkung für die Transformation? Eine embedded-agency perspective zur Analyse von Wirkmechanismen in Reallaboren
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Authors
The central concern of real-world lab research is the inter- and transdisciplinary generation of socially robust transformation knowledge. Despite the fact that real-world labs explore and study fundamental mechanisms of change, there are few approaches that deal with this question from a systematic, theoretical and methodological perspective. Concrete real-world lab projects should be able to live up to their claim as a central research mode, supporting sustainability transformations. Thus, approaches are required that foster a broader understanding of mechanisms of change in real-world labs. We find promising approaches that describe mechanisms of change along discipline-specific analytical and empirical scales. Key challenges are to develop analytical frameworks that integrate such approaches from different disciplines, and to identify mechanisms of change in a systematic and comprehensive way. In this article we present an embedded-agency perspective for analysing mechanisms of change in real-world labs and discuss the methodological implications. With the help of this analytical framework, real-world lab processes can be designed in such a way that relevant data is collected and transformative impacts can be assessed.
| Translated title of the contribution | How do real-world labs create impact for sustainability transformations? An embedded-agency perspective on analysing mechanisms of change in real-world labs |
|---|---|
| Original language | German |
| Journal | GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 207-214 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISSN | 0940-5550 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31.12.2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
Acknowledgement: We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Funding: We gratefully acknowledge joint funding for parts of this work from the Robert Bosch foundation (Project: Towards an interdisciplinary understanding of scales and scaling in sustainability transitions [InterScale]). Paula Bögel also received funding for this project from the Volkswagen Foundation (Project: Dual-mode participation: Window of Opportunity for Inclusive Real-Worlds Labs). Karoline Augenstein and Meike Levin-Keitel received funding for parts of this project from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of its Research for Sustainable Development Framework Program/ Social-Ecological Research (Projects: UrbanUp and MoveMe). The real-world experiment Your Balcony Network, that served as a case study, received funding from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers (Project: Energy transformation in dialogue). Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Author contribution: KA, PMB and MLK jointly developed the analytical framework (embedded-agency perspective). They contributed their respective expertise in spatial analysis (MLK), socio-psychological analysis (PMB) and scaling/impact assessment in real-world lab research (KA). The empirical data of the illustrative case study were collected and evaluated by PMB and HT. All co-authors were involved in the preparation of the manuscript.
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