The Role of Transacademic Interface Managers in Transformational Sustainability Research and Education

128664-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Working towards sustainable solutions requires involving professionals and stakeholders from all sectors of society into research and teaching. This often presents a challenge to scholars at universities, as they lack capacity and time needed for negotiating different agendas, languages, competencies,

Working towards sustainable solutions requires involving professionals and stakeholders from all sectors of society into research and teaching. This often presents a challenge to scholars at universities, as they lack capacity and time needed for negotiating different agendas, languages, competencies, and cultures among faculty, students, and stakeholders. Management approaches and quality criteria have been developed to cope with this challenge, including concepts of boundary organizations, transdisciplinary research, transition management, and interface management. However, few of these concepts present comprehensive proposals how to facilitate research with stakeholder participation while creating educational opportunities along the lifecycle of a project. The article focuses on the position of a transacademic interface manager (TIM) supporting participatory sustainability research and education efforts. We conceptualize the task portfolio of a TIM; outline the capacities a TIM needs to possess in order to successfully operate; and propose an educational approach for how to train students in becoming a TIM. For this, we review the existing literature on TIMs and present insights from empirical sustainability research and educational projects that involved TIMs in different functions. The article provides practical guidance to universities on how to organize these critical endeavors more effectively and to offer students an additional career perspective.

Date Created
2013-10-30
Agent

Do We Teach What We Preach? An International Comparison of Problem- and Project-Based Learning Courses in Sustainability

128714-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Problem- and project-based learning (PPBL) courses in sustainability address real-world sustainability problems. They are considered powerful educational settings for building students’ sustainability expertise. In practice, however, these courses often fail to fully incorporate sustainability competencies, participatory research education, and experiential

Problem- and project-based learning (PPBL) courses in sustainability address real-world sustainability problems. They are considered powerful educational settings for building students’ sustainability expertise. In practice, however, these courses often fail to fully incorporate sustainability competencies, participatory research education, and experiential learning. Only few studies exist that compare and appraise PPBL courses internationally against a synthesized body of the literature to create an evidence base for designing PPBL courses. This article introduces a framework for PPBL courses in sustainability and reviews PPBL practice in six programs around the world (Europe, North America, Australia). Data was collected through semi-structured qualitative interviews with course instructors and program officers, as well as document analysis. Findings indicate that the reviewed PPBL courses are of high quality and carefully designed. Each PPBL course features innovative approaches to partnerships between the university and private organizations, extended peer-review, and the role of knowledge brokers. Yet, the findings also indicate weaknesses including paucity of critical learning objectives, solution-oriented research methodology, and follow-up research on implementation. Through the comparative design, the study reveals improvement strategies for the identified challenges and provides guidance for design and redesign of PPBL courses.

Date Created
2013-04-23
Agent

Beyond Interpersonal Competence: Teaching and Learning Professional Skills in Sustainability

128728-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Successful careers in sustainability are determined by positive real-world change towards sustainability. This success depends heavily on professional skills in effective and compassionate communication, collaborative teamwork, or impactful stakeholder engagement, among others. These professional skills extend beyond content knowledge and

Successful careers in sustainability are determined by positive real-world change towards sustainability. This success depends heavily on professional skills in effective and compassionate communication, collaborative teamwork, or impactful stakeholder engagement, among others. These professional skills extend beyond content knowledge and methodical expertise. Current sustainability programs do not sufficiently facilitate students’ acquisition of such skills. This article presents a brief summary of professional skills, synthesized from the literature, and why they are relevant for sustainability professionals. Second, it presents how these skills have been taught in an undergraduate course in sustainability at Arizona State University, USA. Third, it critically discusses the effectiveness and challenges of that exemplary course. Finally, the article concludes with outlining the lessons learned that should be incorporated into future course offerings.

Date Created
2017-03-07
Agent

Aligning Public Participation to Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy: A Case Study on Sustainable Urban Development in Phoenix, Arizona

128734-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

n public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the

n public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates a public participation process in Phoenix, Arizona, in which researchers, in collaboration with city planners, facilitated sustainability conversations as part of an urban development process. The tool employed for Visually Enhanced Sustainability Conversation (VESC) was specifically designed to better align public participation with stakeholders’ sustainability literacy. We tested and evaluated VESC through interviews with participants, city planners, and members of the research team, as well as an analysis of project reports. We found that the use of VESC successfully facilitated discussions on pertinent sustainability issues and embedded sustainability objectives into the project reports. We close with recommendations for strengthening tools like VESC for future public engagements.

Date Created
2015-07-03
Agent

Responsible innovation and sustainability: interventions in education and training of scientists and engineers

154315-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Three dilemmas plague governance of scientific research and technological

innovation: the dilemma of orientation, the dilemma of legitimacy, and the dilemma of control. The dilemma of orientation risks innovation heedless of long-term implications. The dilemma of legitimacy grapples with delegation of

Three dilemmas plague governance of scientific research and technological

innovation: the dilemma of orientation, the dilemma of legitimacy, and the dilemma of control. The dilemma of orientation risks innovation heedless of long-term implications. The dilemma of legitimacy grapples with delegation of authority in democracies, often at the expense of broader public interest. The dilemma of control poses that the undesirable implications of new technologies are hard to grasp, yet once grasped, all too difficult to remedy. That humanity has innovated itself into the sustainability crisis is a prime manifestation of these dilemmas.

Responsible innovation (RI), with foci on anticipation, inclusion, reflection, coordination, and adaptation, aims to mitigate dilemmas of orientation, legitimacy, and control. The aspiration of RI is to bend the processes of technology development toward more just, sustainable, and societally desirable outcomes. Despite the potential for fruitful interaction across RI’s constitutive domains—sustainability science and social studies of science and technology—most sustainability scientists under-theorize the sociopolitical dimensions of technological systems and most science and technology scholars hesitate to take a normative, solutions-oriented stance. Efforts to advance RI, although notable, entail one-off projects that do not lend themselves to comparative analysis for learning.

In this dissertation, I offer an intervention research framework to aid systematic study of intentional programs of change to advance responsible innovation. Two empirical studies demonstrate the framework in application. An evaluation of Science Outside the Lab presents a program to help early-career scientists and engineers understand the complexities of science policy. An evaluation of a Community Engagement Workshop presents a program to help engineers better look beyond technology, listen to and learn from people, and empower communities. Each program is efficacious in helping scientists and engineers more thoughtfully engage with mediators of science and technology governance dilemmas: Science Outside the Lab in revealing the dilemmas of orientation and legitimacy; Community Engagement Workshop in offering reflexive and inclusive approaches to control. As part of a larger intervention research portfolio, these and other projects hold promise for aiding governance of science and technology through responsible innovation.

Date Created
2016
Agent

Selecting programs for urban transformations towards sustainability

154090-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Despite widespread acknowledgement of the need for transformation towards sustainability, the majority of cities appear stuck in incremental change instead of far-reaching, radical change. While there are numerous obstacles to transformational change, one critical aspect is the process of selecting

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the need for transformation towards sustainability, the majority of cities appear stuck in incremental change instead of far-reaching, radical change. While there are numerous obstacles to transformational change, one critical aspect is the process of selecting impactful sustainability programs. The unique and complex nature of sustainability suggests a different approach is needed to program selection than is normal. But, to what extent are cities adapting selection processes in response to sustainability and what effect does this have on sustainable urban transformation? Could there be a more effective process to select programs with greater transformational potential? This dissertation investigates these questions using case studies and action research to add to the general knowledge of urban sustainability program selection and to develop practical knowledge (solutions) for more effective sustainable urban transformation.

The dissertation consists of three studies. Study 1 uses a case study approach to investigate existing sustainability program selection processes in three cities: Avondale, USA; Almere, the Netherlands; and Freiburg, Germany. These cities all express commitment to sustainability but have varying degrees of sustainable development experience, accomplishment, and recognition. Study 2 develops a program selection framework for urban sustainable transformation drawing extensively from the literature on sustainability assessment and related fields, and on participatory input from municipal practitioners in Avondale and Almere. Study 3 assesses the usefulness of the framework in a dual pilot study. Participatory workshops were conducted in which the framework was applied to real-world situations: (i) with the city’s sustainability working group in Avondale; and (ii) with a local energy cooperative in Almere.

Overall, findings suggest cities are not significantly adapting program selection processes in response to the challenges of sustainability. Processes are often haphazard, opportunistic, driven elite actors, and weakly aligned with sustainability principles and goals, which results in selected programs being more incremental than transformational. The proposed framework appears effective at opening up the range of program options considered, stimulating constructive deliberation among participants, and promoting higher order learning. The framework has potential for nudging program selection towards transformational outcomes and more deeply embedding sustainability within institutional culture.
Date Created
2015
Agent

Citizenship Education Through Participatory Budgeting: The Case of Bioscience High School in Phoenix, Arizona

129226-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

Public participation in local decision-making processes has numerous purported benefits. Yet, realizing these benefits requires a citizenry that is able and willing to participate in meaningful ways. High schools are ideal venues for civic education but rarely teach local collective

Public participation in local decision-making processes has numerous purported benefits. Yet, realizing these benefits requires a citizenry that is able and willing to participate in meaningful ways. High schools are ideal venues for civic education but rarely teach local collective action, citizen engagement, and self-governance, focusing instead on personal responsibility, knowledge of political institutions, and information on electoral processes. This article reports on a citizenship education project in a high school in Phoenix, Arizona. The program engaged students from all grade levels in a participatory budgeting (PB) process – to our knowledge, the first School PB in the U.S. The study asked to what extent student engagement in PB contributed to democratic learning necessary to actively engage in public debates and decision-making processes. The findings suggest that deliberative processes that engage students in decision-making can develop civic competencies, and among available strategies, PB is particularly effective. The study also found that the impact of informal democratic learning through PB increases significantly when it is paired with formal learning in the classroom.

Date Created
2015
Agent

Populating and facilitating urban sustainability transition arenas

153893-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Urban areas face a host of sustainability problems ranging from air and water quality, to housing affordability, and sprawl reducing returns on infrastructure investments, among many others. To address such challenges, cities have begun to envision generational sustainability transitions, and

Urban areas face a host of sustainability problems ranging from air and water quality, to housing affordability, and sprawl reducing returns on infrastructure investments, among many others. To address such challenges, cities have begun to envision generational sustainability transitions, and coalesce transition arenas in context to manage those transitions. Transition arenas coordinate the efforts of diverse stakeholders in a setting conducive to making evidence-based decisions that guide a transition forward. Though espoused and studied in the literature, transition arenas still require further research on the specifics of agent selection, arena setting, and decision-making facilitation. This dissertation has three related contributions related to transition arenas. First, it describes a process that took place within Phoenix that focused on identifying, recruiting, and building the capacity of potential transition agents for a transition arena. As part of this, a first draft suggestion of plausible steps to take for identifying, recruiting, and building a team of transition agents is proposed followed by a brief discussion on how this step-by-step process could be evaluated in subsequent work. Second, building on such engagement, this dissertation then offers criteria for transition agent selection based on a review of the literature that includes the setting in which a transition arena occurs, and strategies to support successful facilitation of decision-making in that setting. Third, those criteria are operationalized to evaluate the facilitation of a specific decision (draft of a new transportation plan) in a specific transition arena: the Citizens Committee for the future of Phoenix Transportation. The goal of this dissertation is to articulate a first-draft framework for guiding the development and scientific evaluation of transition arenas. Future work is required to empirically validate the framework in other real-world transition arenas. A feasible research agenda is provides to support this work.
Date Created
2015
Agent

Aligning public participation processes in urban development projects to the local context

153407-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Public participation is considered an essential process for achieving sustainable urban development. Often, however, insufficient attention is paid to the design of public participation, and processes are formulaic. Then, participation may not match the local context of the

Public participation is considered an essential process for achieving sustainable urban development. Often, however, insufficient attention is paid to the design of public participation, and processes are formulaic. Then, participation may not match the local context of the communities within which a project is conducted. As a result, participation may become co-optative or coercive, stakeholders may lose trust, and outcomes may favor special interests or be unsustainable, among other shortcomings.

In this research, urban public participation is a collaborative decision-making process between residents, businesses, experts, public officials, and other stakeholders. When processes are not attuned with the local context (participant lifestyles, needs, interests, and capacities) misalignments between process and context arise around living conditions and personal circumstances, stakeholder trust, civic engagement, collaborative capacity, and sustainability literacy, among others.

This dissertation asks (1) what challenges arise when the public participation process does not match the local context, (2) what are key elements of public participation processes that are aligned with the local context, (3) what are ways to design public participation that align with specific local contexts, and (4) what societal qualities and conditions are necessary for meaningful participatory processes?

These questions are answered through four interrelated studies. Study 1 analyzes the current state of the problem by reviewing public participation processes and categorizing common misalignments with the local context. Study 2 envisions a future in which the problem is solved by identifying the features of well-aligned processes. Studies 3 and 4 test interventions for achieving the vision.

This dissertation presents a framework for analyzing the local context in urban development projects and designing public participation processes to meet this context. This work envisions public participation processes aligned with their local context, and it presents directives for designing deliberative decision-making processes for sustainable urban development. The dissertation applies a systems perspective to the social process of public participation, and it provides empirical support for theoretical debates on public participation while creating actionable knowledge for planners and practitioners.
Date Created
2015
Agent

Demystifying beneficiary participation and its effects in international development

153031-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Beneficiary participation has become popular in international development generally, and it is an essential feature of sustainable development. But there are diverse definitions of and motivations for using beneficiary participation, and empirical literature on its effects is underdeveloped. This dissertation

Beneficiary participation has become popular in international development generally, and it is an essential feature of sustainable development. But there are diverse definitions of and motivations for using beneficiary participation, and empirical literature on its effects is underdeveloped. This dissertation aims to clarify what beneficiary participation is and whether there is empirical support for claims about its benefits.

I review historical trends in international development that led to the popularity of both sustainable development and beneficiary participation. This review identifies central themes in defining beneficiary participation and motivations for using it.

I also developed a new typology of beneficiary participation based on a literature review of how scholars define beneficiary participation. I found that the main dimensions of beneficiary participation are (1) participants, (2) channels, (3) types of inputs, (4) timing, and (5) goals. By making these dimensions explicit, this work helps researchers and development practitioners more clearly describe the types of beneficiary participation they study, employ, and advocate for.

To contribute to empirical literature about beneficiary participation, I conducted a case-study of two urban development projects in Bhopal, India. I collected data with a structured survey of project beneficiaries in four slums (two slums from each project) and semi-structured interviews with each project's organizers. And project documents provided secondary data on both projects. The results indicate that local elites did not capture a disproportionate share of either project's benefits, at least with respect to individual household toilets. Because project organizers rather than beneficiaries selected households that would receive toilets, both cases serve as counterexamples to the claim that beneficiaries must intensely participate for projects' benefits to be distributed equitably.

Finally, I review academic literature for empirical evidence that supports claims about the advantages of beneficiary participation. There is relatively strong empirical support for the claim that beneficiary participation improves project outcomes, but empirical support for most other claims (i.e., that it helps make projects more efficient, distribute benefits equitably, and sustain project benefits) is weak. And empirical research suggests that one claimed benefit, empowerment, rarely materializes. In general, more empirical research about beneficiary participation is needed.
Date Created
2014
Agent