Emergence of transdisciplinarity in global environmental change research: moving from system understanding to systemic sustainability solutions

Abstract

Global environmental change includes major environmental challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity decline and food and energy security. These challenges were addressed by the international global change research programs. The early phases of these programs developed tools to understand different Earth systems and reduce uncertainties. Soon the programs recognized that this understanding helped to solve environmental problems. Initially, they provided policy makers with peer-reviewed syntheses of the underlying science in science-policy assessments. Such assessments were applied to ozone depletion, climate change and biodiversity loss. Later, when the problems’ complexity and wickedness became evident, integrated assessment models combined with science-policy dialogues and stakeholder participation were applied to assess policy responses. All these approaches set the scene for the now rapidly emerging field of co-design/co-production or transdisciplinary research. Many transdisciplinary projects and networks, that link research to policy making, have been proposed and implemented over the last decade as part of the sustainability-research platform ‘Future Earth’. Although these advancements addressed many different issues, they certainly influenced policies and affected society. Exploiting different knowledge bases (including Indigenous knowledge), informing and involving stakeholders and their decision making, and making the desired sustainability transitions are nowadays common objectives of global change research and its societal impacts are documented and reflected upon. To advance this exciting research field, institutional recognition, funding and communities of practice that engage young scientists, are needed.