Transformative Science for Sustainability Transitions

Abstract

Sustainability Transitions require a knowledge production that contributes actively to the Grand Challenges of twenty-first-century societies. Scientific institutions play a key role in this domain in the transformation towards sustainability and peace. Against this background a Transformative Science is needed: a mode of science that not only analyses processes of transformation, but also actively supports and accelerates them. This chapter will introduce the concept of Transformative Science and its implications for (1) the methodologies of transdiscipli- nary and transformative research, (2) institutional capacity-building for facilitating such a research approach, and (3) the national science systems and national science policies that enable this new mode of knowledge pro- duction. The case of the German science system is introduced to describe an ongoing science system transition with special regard to the role of civil society organizations.