Refine
Year of Publication
Document Type
- Part of a Book (12)
- Contribution to Periodical (7)
- Peer-Reviewed Article (5)
- Book (2)
- Conference Object (2)
- Report (2)
- Working Paper (1)
Language
- English (31) (remove)
The multi-level perspective has successfully been applied to the analysis of complex sector transitions in the energy, the health or the food production sector. Is this framework also helpful to understand and give prescriptive advice for sustainability transformations within a national science system? Based on a comprehensive study of the diffusion of transdisciplinary sustainability research in Germany, this article analyzes the institutional dimension of a changing science-society relation in the German science system. It uses the multi-level perspective as a fruitful heuristic in order to identify potential pathways for a broader diffusion of transdisciplinary sustainability science. The importance of niche coalitions of frontrunner universities and research institutes are highlighted.
Cities as "real world laboratories" for system innovations : theories, models and empirical designs
(2012)
The transition to renewable energy systems : on the way to a comprehensive transition concept
(2013)
Economy of sufficiency : essays on wealth in diversity, enjoyable limits and creating commons
(2013)
Another summit of change, known as Rio+20, has passed in summer 2012, nourishing the rumours of a green economy. Building up a green economy seems to be the all over recipe for different crises of capitalism, among them climate change and resource scarcity. Yet efficiency and consistency, as their main strategies, do not suffice to reach sustainable levels, as they cause rebound effects and keep stimulating economy growth. Obviously, there are limits to green growth, too. Can we conceive an economy, and respective economic institutions, that serve human needs and wealth without a built-in necessity to grow? What kind of political, mental, and individual changes does a sufficiency economy require? And what are perspectives and policies to actually start implementing it?
Just before Rio +20 the symposium "Economy of Sufficiency", devoted to Wolfgang Sachs on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2011, examined these questions in three dimensions. Accordingly this selection of contributions to the symposium follows the chapters "Wealth in diversity" (Ashok Khosla, Marianne Gronemeyer, Vandana Shiva), "Enjoyable limits" (Richard B. Norgaard, Tim Jackson) and "Creating commons" (Ezio Manzini, Silke Helfrich).
The essays indicate the historical development of the ideas on a sufficiency economy. Wandering through discourses of sustainable development for several decades, the authors map the range of perspectives, practices as well as barriers and bridge them between cultures, agencies and schools.
Navigating within planetary boundaries : transformation into a post-fossil economy as a challenge
(2013)
Enabling the great transformation : transdisciplinarity as individual and institutional challenge
(2014)
Realizing a sustainable future in the Anthropocene requires a "great transformation." The massive technological, economic, social, and cultural change this implies is based on new forms of literacy and knowledge integration. It depends on a highly transdisciplinary "transformative science," i.e., scientific knowledge production that not only focuses on "system knowledge" but also on "target" and on "transformation" knowledge, and thus integrates different disciplines and practical expertise. The existing science system is actually not fulfilling this new social contract between science and society. Frontrunner institutions like the IASS and "transdisciplinary personalities" like Klaus Töpfer are important change agents to bring forward the transformative mission of a future Earth science.
A book promoting policies to make it easier to live the Good Life must do two things. Firstly, it must demonstrate that such policies are necessary; secondly, it must set out how such a policy programme is to be implemented. In other words, it has to show that the politics of sufficiency is feasible.
"The Politics of Sufficiency" deals with claims of feasibility, and with the objections to them. It demonstrates that a politics of the Good Life can be both justified and legitimated in modern free democratic societies - indeed, that it is an essential condition of such societies. The main section of the book sets out in detail how such a politics can be implemented, organised along four political dimensions. At the same time, this book can only represent a beginning, and that is its aim - a starting-point for a broad discussion over the coming years.
To identify the main drivers of transformation, it is helpful to identify the transformation perspectives of three specific schools of thought: idealist, institutional, and technological innovation. By differentiating among these schools of thought, a more informed transformation debate becomes possible, thereby increasing transformative literacy in academia and society.
"Transformative science" is a concept that delineates the new role of science for knowledge societies in the age of reflexive modernity. The paper develops the program of a transformative science, which goes beyond observing and analyzing societal transformations, but rather takes an active role in initiating and catalyzing change processes. The aim of transformative science is to achieve a deeper understanding of ongoing transformations and increased societal capacity for reflexivity with regard to these fundamental change processes. The concept of transformative science is grounded in an experimental paradigm, which has implications for (1) research, (2) education and learning, and (3) institutional structures and change in the science system. The article develops the theoretical foundations of the concept of transformative science and spells out the concrete implications in these three dimensions.