Towards a Real-world Laboratory: A Transdisciplinary Case Study from Lüneburg

Real-world laboratories have gained currency in transdisciplinary sustainability research. Establishing real-world laboratories by means of a transdisciplinary process offers promising prospects since it fosters trust among the participants and leads to significant commitment and participation.

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.