Publications related to Transdisciplinarity

Towards sufficiency in housing: Agent-based model and transition scenarios

Research problem: Housing is responsible for a considerable part of global resource consumption. In Switzerland, it accounts for almost one third of the country's CO2 emissions and half of the total energy demand. Thus, housing plays an important role in the transition to sustainable development. Housing has been thoroughly studied from a disciplinary perspective, e.g., economics, social sciences, psychology, engineering. However, little attention has been paid to housing as a system of interrelated actors, e.g., developers, owners, tenants and state, whose actions might be described by different disciplines. Aim: The aim of this thesis is to investigate how a change in the construction practices of property owners in combination to a more space-efficient allocation of dwellings to households and a behavioural change of tenants can achieve a substantial reduction in the environmental impact of housing. This dissertation focuses on the interrelations of housing actors, concentrating mainly on the property owners and explores which measures and to what extent can lead to a reduction of space consumption of housing.Methods: Housing is characterised by a high level of complexity, therefore a transdisciplinary approach is adopted. Firstly, the Swiss housing market and its unique attributes are studied. However, in this thesis, we study a subset of the Swiss rental housing market; it comprises two housing cooperatives: ABZ in Zurich and SCHL in Lausanne as well as the insurer and asset manager Swiss Mobiliar. Their housing stocks, of approximately 10,000 dwellings, are examined in depth and are used as a case study. Extensive data gathering allowed to create an exhaustive inventory of the building stock of the three property owners. The data on tenants was limited, thus, we conducted a tenant survey. Furthermore, a series of workshops with both tenants and property owners were organised to study their decision-making processes. A bottom-up agent-based model (ABM) is built, which portrays the case study housing system. The main actors of the rental housing market (property owners and households) are represented in the model by agents; the owner agents make decisions about their building stock and tenants, while the household agents choose a dwelling based on their needs and housing preferences. The dynamic evolution of both owners and households and the interaction between them is simulated in the model and allows the study of emergent phenomena. The present thesis attempts the assessment of the environmental impact of housing through the lens of housing sufficiency. Space consumption, in terms of dwelling surface and floor area per capita, is considered as the largest determinant of resource consumption.Results: The simulation results show that measures taken to decrease the environmental impact of housing and space consumption are inadequate if owners do not change their construction practices and households do not actively change their housing behaviour. Most measures explored in this thesis, if implemented individually, succeed in reducing the rate of increase in space consumption but fail to reverse the upward trend. A more space-efficient allocation of dwellings to households proves to have a certain effect. However, only when combined with other measures, such as the densification of the existing building stock and a change in construction practices, a significant decrease of environmental impact is observed.

EPFL2022

From research to sustainability transitions - Identifying pathways to societal effects

Thorsten Schilling

Problem statement. The rise of sustainability as a guiding norm for societal development also affects knowledge production in science. Particularly in the context of sustainability science, researchers are increasingly confronted with claims for creating societally relevant knowledge that helps to solve existing problems and facilitates sustainable development. This re-orientation of the science-society contract raises questions about the role of research in sustainability transition processes. There is need for further conceptual and empirical insights on how research can create societal effects and how these effects relate to ongoing dynamics shaping sustainability transition processes. Research goal. This dissertation aims at clarifying the ways in which research can contribute to sustainability transitions. Methodology. The dissertation consists of a theoretical conceptual and an empirical part. The theoretical conceptual part is (primarily) literature-based. Via a critically reflection on existing concepts from the resilience and (sustainability) transitions literature, we integrate ideas through a re-entry approach into a common conceptual perspective. The empirical part of the dissertation includes a meta-analytical study of ongoing sustainability research projects with a qualitative research design that primarily builds on semi-structured and problem-centered interviews. Throughout three rounds of interviews with researchers and practitioners involved in the projects, we created and discussed (mental) models of the intervieweesâ perceived pathways to societal effects and particularly shed light on the link between participatory processes and societal effects. In addition, two already finished transdisciplinary projects were analyzed via a framework-based self-reflection by the two co-leaders of the projects from research and practice. Results. On the theoretical level, we introduce a new conceptual perspective to frame sustainability transitions from a resilience perspective. Thereby, we elaborate, how transition progress, stability, and adaptability constitute three dimensions that determine the resilience of sustainability transition processes. The empirical results highlight the broad variety of pathways to societal effects that can be identified across different sustainability research projects and the importance of boundary conditions in the related practice contexts of the projects as critical influence factors for achieving societal effects. Furthermore, we show the diversity and complexity of ways in which participatory processes are embedded in pathways to societal effects. Conclusion. The results of this dissertation contribute to clarifying the role of research projects in sustainability transition processes. Understanding societal effects of sustainability research requires a broad conceptual perspective that allows to consider the diverse and complex ways in which research projects and existing structures and dynamics in the related practice contexts of the projects reciprocally shape each other.

EPFL2019

The politics of participation in transdisciplinary sustainability research: an analysis of knowledge, values and power at the science-society interface

Livia Bianca Fritz

Problem. In the field of sustainability, scholars and policy-makers herald the transformative power of participation in transdisciplinary (TD) research. The increasing use of TD in science policy is rooted in the expectation that involving practitioners in the research process produces 'socially robust' knowledge and fosters the desired societal change. However, there is a strong discrepancy between these expectations, ideal-typical conceptions of TD, and a limited understanding of the complex interactions that forge participation in knowledge production practices. Aim. This thesis aims to enhance understanding of the complex processes that shape participation practices and their outcomes in TD sustainability research. Methods. This thesis links social theories and literature from sustainability research, Science and Technology Studies, and development research with empirical enquiries into the making of participation. Qualitative and quantitative methods are combined in order to draw a rich picture of researchers' and practitioners' perceptions of participation processes and outcomes. Results. To begin, this thesis offers a novel perspective on participation as a relational space that is dynamically forged through the interplay of structures and processes. Secondly, it identifies structural and actor-related elements that constitute participation spaces, including: (in)coherence with reference systems, resources, timing, expectations, trust, values and power relations. The empirical analyses show that funding bodies, researchers, and practitioners exercise 'power over' actor selection, as well as agenda and rule setting, leading to the exclusion of some knowledges and values. Throughout TD processes, 'power over' intersects with 'power with' and 'power to', highlighting trade-offs between the epistemic and societal goals of participation. Unpacking processes also shows how partly incommensurable values with regard to sustainability shape knowledge production, and how the latter can perpetuate dominant discourses on society-nature relations. Finally, this thesis reveals diverse participation-effect pathways as well as feedback effects. Researchers' and practitioners' diverging perceptions of pathways come with contrasting roles and responsibilities they ascribe to themselves and to others. Conclusions. The results demonstrate that participation processes in TD sustainability research are not only a matter of techniques and methods, but also of political endeavours that must be placed in a broader socio-political context. The value negotiations and power relations that form them, the multiple purposes for which they are mobilised and their role in the governance landscape demonstrate the importance of the politics of participation. Fostering conceptual clarity and empirical knowledge of the dynamics that shape participation in and the effects of TD research, this thesis feeds into a critical sustainability scholarship that is aware of power dynamics and is reflexive towards its own practices. It provides researchers and practitioners with theoretically and empirically-grounded analytical perspectives and guiding questions on the role of structures, actors and power relations in TD practice. These tools allow for unravelling the deep-rooted challenges of participation and support researchers and practitioners in making their assumptions about pathways to societal change visible and negotiable.

EPFL2020

Hegemony in institutional transformation. Thesis from a work in progress"

Livia Bianca Fritz

Transforming universities towards transdisciplinarity is a complex endeavour, tackling established practices, policies, legal structures as well as personal and professional values and norms. Enabling institutions often emerge from niche initiatives, such as courses or study programs, research projects or transfer activities, to evolve into larger realms, or may follow more pre-structured, linear top-down or bottom-up pathways. To date, universities having undergone such transformation are rare, but many experiences and niche initiatives exist within universities to draw insight, such as the establishment of inter- and transdisciplinary research centres or study programs. Increasingly, spaces for action and reflection are formed at the margins of, and in-between established institutions as an expression of current transformations of societal orders. Static structures are being replaced by temporary, fluid spaces in which knowledge is produced, received, negotiated, and transformed in new ways and linked more closely to societal transformation. Thereby, hegemonies play out in different ways: First, such transformations face resistance from long term established values and norms of disciplinarily organized academic communities influencing everyday practices and policy making. Second, such transformations are confronted by the dominance of (occidental) academic values and norms of knowledge production and challenge the legitimacy of multiple ways of knowing and cognizing in research and education. This influences the potential of trans-sector collaboration, where different ways of knowing, acting, and being are incorporated to tackle problems through transdisciplinary research.

2021

How do participation of practice partners and societal impacts interrelate? Perspectives from sci- ence and practice actors in transdisciplinary sustainability research projects

Claudia Rebeca Binder Signer, Livia Bianca Fritz, Thorsten Schilling

In this contribution, we put the spotlight on the interlinkages between participatory knowledge production and sustainabili ty transformations by proposing an empirical enquiry into transdisciplinary (TD) research projects. With regard to (un)sustainab le development the limitations of knowledge production within the exclusive realms of science have become manifest in malfunc- tio ning feedback between science and political action. In reaction, claims have been made that scientific inquiry along clear -cut boundaries between scientific knowledge production and the societal usage thereof is not sufficient for tackling complex sust ain- ability problems. TD, which aims at integrating heterogeneous actors and diverse forms of expertise, has emerged as a key noti on in this quest for more “robust?” and responsive knowledge. One core assumption in the literature is that the participation of a wider set of societal actors enhances the societal impact of research and facilitates transformations. In this presentation, we juxtapose this assumption with meta -level reflections on real -world TD sustainability research cases. We investigate (i) which factors constitute different practices of participation, (ii) how actors in TD projects establish the link between participati on prac- tices and intended societal impact of their projects and (iii) which other influence factors they perceive as relevant for t heir in- tended societal impacts. In doing so, we look at a sample of sustainability research projects funded by the program “Science for Sustainable Development (WfNE)” of the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation. T hese projects represent a broad variety of topics and research designs including diverse participatory approaches and intended soc ie- tal effects. Our results are based on a series of qualitative analyses: We performed a document analysis of the project prop osals and two rounds of interviews with project leaders and scientists. Furthermore, we included the practice perspective in our an aly- sis by conducting interviews with non -scientific actors involved in the projects. This procedure allows us to provide find ings on how both scientific and non -scientific actors in TD projects in the field of sustainability research conceive of and perceive (i) par- ticipation processes in the project, (ii) participation as an influence factor for societal impacts, and (iii) furt her project- or con- text -based influence factors for the intended societal effects. Finally, we present a tentative analytical framework sensitive to diverse participatory processes and different types of potential impacts they are associated with.

2017

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In sustainability research, transdisciplinary (TD) approaches that involve practitioners in the research process have emerged as promising tools for enhancing real-world knowledge and engendering societal change. However, empirical insights into how such participation can contribute to the societal effects of TD research are scant and largely rely on single case studies, neglecting practitioners’ perceptions. In this article, we empirically investigate the perceptions of both researchers and practitioners on how practitioners’ participation in TD research might instigate societal changes. We present the results of a qualitative meta-level study of participation processes in seven TD sustainability research projects from a large German research funding programme. Applying a systems approach, we (i) uncover direct, indirect and interlinked participation-effect pathways; and (ii) highlight feedback effects that shape a dynamically evolving participation process. By elucidating both researchers’ and practitioners’ perceptions of participation-effect pathways, this article contributes empirical insights to an emerging scholarship on theories of change in sustainability research and provides ideas on how to better include systems thinking into TD research and future studies of societal effects.

2019

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This article discusses the concept and the practice of transdisciplinary research, including how it is conceived and implemented through the cooperation of different actors involved. With transdisciplinarity gaining recognition as an approach to addressing sustainable development challenges, the successful integration of various disciplines and actors in the process of knowledge generation becomes essential. Through the Cooperation and Development Center (CODEV), the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has promoted transdisciplinary research by proposing a space where North–South partnerships integrating academic and non-academic actors enable the expansion of appropriate technologies and innovations adapted to local societal contexts. This study examines five collaborative research projects conducted at the EPFL. By using an analytical framework consisting of design principles for ideal transdisciplinary research, we conducted semi-structured interviews with academic and non-academic members of the research projects to assess the degree of transdisciplinarity. This framework proved to be a useful tool for exploring transdisciplinary dynamics and assessing the effectiveness of joint knowledge generation. We found that the transdisciplinary cooperation involving different actors is not a linear process, as it depends on the social context in which the project is carried out and on the internal and the external organizational structure established for its implementation. We provide recommendations on how transdisciplinarity could be expanded through institutional support and its results could be effectively transferred into science and practice and discuss the implications for further studies in the conclusions.

2019

2021

(De - )Constructing Participation in Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research: A Critical Review of Key Concepts

Livia Bianca Fritz

SSOAR2018

Participation practices in transdisciplinary sustainability research -an empirical enquiry

Livia Bianca Fritz

2017