Transdisciplinary research and stakeholder involvement. A review of the TFO approach

Fast and complex global changes with uncertain outcomes such as climate change, population growth, globalisation, and land degradation require sophisticated adaptations of policy and decision making. Man strongly shapes ecosystems and at the same time depends on its functions and services. The emerging need to understand and address these complex dynamics resulting from the interactions between the human and ecological systems leads to a changing role of science in society. Policies based on the acknowledgment of complexity need to be informed by an integrative science which incorporates a wide range of bodies of knowledge (