History and mapping of transdisciplinary research on sustainable development issues: Dealing with complex problems in times of urgency

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity as a research approach is widely recommended for addressing sustainability issues. Transdisciplinary research practices have emerged in ‘sustainability science’ as an integrating field of science, as well as in a wide range of disciplines contributing to the analysis and problem solving of the many interrelated issues covered by the concept of sustainable development. In the field of policy science, this has stimulated a special branch of research on participatory policy making, co-production policy, co-creation, open planning, self-governance and interactive governance. The key nature of joint knowledge creation for problem solving of sustainability challenges does, according to various scholars, explicitly require flexibility and context adaptiveness in the choice and application of research methods. The practices of participatory policy making have attracted a large deal of attention and critical evaluation research.