Jointly reflecting and advancing sustainability sciences
The network is the platform for reflexive sustainability sciences in the Leibniz Association. We research how knowledge can be jointly developed in such a way that the multiple crises of the present can be dealt with and overcome. The network works across different action domains and is concerned with the question of how and under what conditions the co-production of knowledge-based solutions for major societal challenges can succeed. A particular focus here is on the targeted development of effective forms of interaction both within science (interdisciplinarity) and between science and society (transdisciplinarity).
To this end, the network organises a comparative reflection on the role of the sciences, their theories and methods, their institutions and the research policy context as well as their respective assessment, especially with regard to human-nature-relations, systems/spaces/times of reference, legitimacy, normativity, ethics, effectiveness, efficiency and thus ultimately sustainability. In addition to researchers from the field of (reflexive) sustainability sciences, the network collaborates intensively with actors from research policy and scientific self-administration to deepen the exchange and develop recommendations for action and their effective transfer.
Central objectives of the network are therefore to:
- Bundle, connect and further develop research competences in the reflexive sustainability sciences in the Leibniz Association,
- Develop cross-domain findings on the framework conditions and the theoretical and methodological approaches of sustainability sciences for the effective and efficient design of sustainability transformations,
- Transfer and exchange of scientific findings of reflexive sustainability science with national and international actors from science, policy and practice,
- Support the Leibniz Association's strategic activities, particularly in the areas of sustainability, knowledge co-production, knowledge transfer and impacts