ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 presents a comparative analysis of 44 cases of transdisciplinary research, across all disciplines, ranging from living lab research, multi-actor multi-criteria assessment and modeling to environmental humanities research into the sociocultural perspectives on sustainability. The outcomes of the analysis define a so-called ladder of knowledge co-production in transdisciplinary research. In a similar manner to Sherry Arnstein’s “ladder of citizen participation,” increasing strength of knowledge co-production leads to an increasing number of transformational knowledge outputs. The most comprehensive levels of co-production include both strong research co-design of interdisciplinary socio-ecological frameworks, research co-management, and active investment in informal and formal social learning on sustainability values. The final section summarizes the resulting epistemological position in terms of a pragmatist constructivist perspective. One of the strengths of this perspective is it accounts for the important role of societal actors and researchers as active agents in the research process while being in line with contemporary post-positivist approaches to scientific realism.
