Towards a Real-world Laboratory: A Transdisciplinary Case Study from Lüneburg
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 these collaborative 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 qualitative scenario 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.
Keywords: real-world laboratory; social transformations; sustainable community development; transdisciplinary research
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 2016
GAIA is a peer-reviewed inter- and transdisciplinary journal for scientists and other interested parties concerned with the causes and analyses of environmental and sustainability problems and their solutions.
Environmental problems cannot be solved by one academic discipline. The complex natures of these problems require cooperation across disciplinary boundaries. Since 1991, GAIA has offered a well-balanced and practice-oriented forum for transdisciplinary research. GAIA offers first-hand information on state of the art environmental research and on current solutions to environmental problems. Well-known editors, advisors, and authors work to ensure the high quality of the contributions found in GAIA and a unique transdisciplinary dialogue – in a comprehensible style.
GAIA is an ISI-journal, listed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Science Citation Index and in Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences.
All contributions undergo a double-blind peer review.- Editorial Board
- Information for Authors
- Subscribe to this Title
- Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content