Transdisciplinarity in sustainability research: Diffusion conditions of an institutional innovation

Abstract

Abstract Under the assumption that there is a close interrelatedness between sustainability research and transdisciplinarity, the authors have explored the experiences of researchers in the sustainability area with this mode of knowledge generation. The paper refers to two standardised surveys carried out in extra-university research institutes in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Explored were the actual research practice and the structural, cultural and personal factors which play a role regarding the feasibility of transdisciplinarity. In the everyday practice of researchers, it was found that it is extraordinarily complicated to overcome disciplinary limitations and to abandon the epistemological security of one's own discipline. This is a duplicate form of insecurity: insecurity concerning the research object and insecurity concerning one's own identity and professional future as a scientist. Thus, cultural (scientific) and structural factors prove to be inhibitory to transdisciplinarity. In the future, this situation may change, especially in extra-university research institutes, if it is possible to let both forms of knowledge generation flow in a project-dependent parallel way. Keywords: CONCEPTS OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITYSUSTAINABILITY RESEARCHINNOVATIONINTERDISCIPLINARY COOPERATIONMODE 1 AND MODE 2