The politics of transdisciplinary research on societal transitions

Within research on societal transitions, ‘post-normal’ scientific approaches such as transdisciplinary research are increasingly prominent. The difficulties of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research are well-established, but less attention has been paid to the underlying causes of these difficulties. In this essay, we argue that the political natures of both ‘transdisciplinarity’ and ‘transitions’ themselves underlie the more visible research challenges. While recent work has outlined how transitions research, embedded as it is in the sociopolitical milieu, can reproduce or challenge existing regimes, here we discuss more specifically the politics of projects themselves, which necessarily affect how they inform societal transitions. Using literature and examples from our own work, we outline three politically contested areas in projects – stakeholder inclusion, understanding of transitions, and research questions that are considered – and identify two broad orientations that research can follow to address these: incremental or fundamental. The interconnectedness of the political aspects of transdisciplinary transitions research requires explicit attention, we argue, if such work is to effectively address complex and ‘wicked’ societal challenges. • Political dimensions of transdisciplinary transitions research impact how projects can inform sustainability transitions. • These include how transitions are conceptualised, research questions and aims, and stakeholder inclusion. • Two broad political orientations that projects can take are ‘incremental’ and ‘fundamental’. • Politics of projects and links between projects and sociopolitical context must be addressed for projects to have impact.