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Transformative research is a broad and loosely connected family of research disciplines and approaches, with the explicit normative ambition to fundamentally question the status quo, change the dominant structures, and support just sustainability transitions by working collaboratively with society. When engaging in such science-practice collaborations for transformative change in society, researchers experience ethical dilemmas. Amongst others, they must decide, what is worthwhile to be researched, whose reality is privileged, and whose knowledge is included. Yet, current institutionalised ethical standards, which largely follow the tradition of medical ethics, are insufficient to guide transformative researchers in navigating such dilemmas. In addressing this vacuum, the research community has started to develop peer guidance on what constitutes morally good behaviour. These formal and informal guidelines offer a repertoire to explain and justify positions and decisions. However, they are only helpful when they have become a part of researchers’ practical knowledge ‘in situ’. By focusing on situated research practices, the article addresses the need to develop an attitude of leaning into the uncertainty around what morally good behaviour constitutes. It also highlights the significance of combining this attitude with a critical reflexive practice both individually and collaboratively for answering questions around ‘how to’ as well as ‘what is the right thing to do’. Using a collaborative autoethnographic approach, the authors of this paper share their own ethical dilemmas in doing transformative research, discuss those, and relate them to a practical heuristic encompassing axiological, ontological, and epistemological considerations. The aim is to support building practical wisdom for the broader research community about how to navigate ethical questions arising in transformative research practice.

Uncertainty and change are increasingly commonplace as communities respond to impacts of social-ecological change including climate change, and dangerous levels of pollution. Given the extent of these crises, new approaches are needed to support responses. Here we identify challenges and discuss insights that the nexus of Senses of place (SoP) and mobilities research offers in navigating such uncertainty. We conducted a two-round Delphi, followed by a workshop, and collaborative writing process with a global network of researchers with expertise in either or both SoP and mobilities research. Participants identified five challenges at the place-mobility nexus that emerge when a social-ecological system is disrupted. We use the 2022 Odra River fish die-off to exemplify the identified challenges: 1) accounting for power dynamics, inequalities and motility; 2) doing justice to more-than human actors; 3) integrating multiple and sometimes nested spatial scales; 4) considering temporalities of place and mobilities, and 5) embracing multisensoriality. To address these challenges, we recommend drawing on diverse methods and knowledge co-creation processes that combine more-than-human perspectives, multisensoriality, and engage in the dynamic relations between places to understand people-place disruptions in the face of socio-spatial precarity. Addressing such knowledge gaps requires stronger collaboration of mobilities and place researchers.

Transformative research is a broad and loosely connected family of research disciplines and approaches, with the explicit normative ambition to fundamentally question the status quo, change the dominant structures, and support just sustainability transitions by working collaboratively with society. When engaging in such science-practice collaborations for transformative change in society, researchers experience ethical dilemmas. Amongst others, they must decide, what is worthwhile to be researched, whose reality is privileged, and whose knowledge is included. Yet, current institutionalised ethical standards, which largely follow the tradition of medical ethics, are insufficient to guide transformative researchers in navigating such dilemmas. In addressing this vacuum, the research community has started to develop peer guidance on what constitutes morally good behaviour. These formal and informal guidelines offer a repertoire to explain and justify positions and decisions. However, they are only helpful when they have become a part of researchers’ practical knowledge ‘in situ’. By focusing on situated research practices, the article addresses the need to develop an attitude of leaning into the uncertainty around what morally good behaviour constitutes. It also highlights the significance of combining this attitude with a critical reflexive practice both individually and collaboratively for answering questions around ‘how to’ as well as ‘what is the right thing to do’. Using a collaborative autoethnographic approach, the authors of this paper share their own ethical dilemmas in doing transformative research, discuss those, and relate them to a practical heuristic encompassing axiological, ontological, and epistemological considerations. The aim is to support building practical wisdom for the broader research community about how to navigate ethical questions arising in transformative research practice.

Das Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Klimaschutz (BMWK) möchte innovationsfreundliche Rahmenbedingungen für Reallabore schaffen. Im Sommer 2023 hat es dazu ein Grünbuch Reallabore veröffentlicht und einen Konsultationsprozess für ein Reallabore-Gesetz eingeleitet. Das Netzwerk Reallabore der Nachhaltigkeit begrüßt die Initiative, sieht aber zugleich erheblichen Gestaltungsbedarf. Die NaWis-Mitglieder unterstützen die hier vorgestellte Position des Netzwerks.

Ways of evaluating the societal impact of real-world labs as a transdisciplinary and transformative research format are under discussion. We present an evaluation approach rooted in structuration theory, with a focus on structure-agency dynamics at the science-society interface. We applied the theory with its four modalities (interpretation schemes, norms, allocative and authoritative resources) to the case of the Mirke neighbourhood in Wuppertal, Germany. Six projects promoted the capacity for co-productive city-making. The effects of the projects were jointly analysed in a co-evaluation process. Previously proposed subcategories of the modalities as an empirical operationalisation were tested and confirmed as being applicable. Five new subcategories were generated. The use of the modalities seems appropriate for co-evaluation processes. The tool is practical, focused on real-world effects, and suitable for transdisciplinary interpretation processes. We encourage further empirical testing of the tool, as well as development of the subcategories.

Transport and mobility systems need to be transformed to meet climate change goals and reduce negative environmental and social effects. Despite EU policies having targeted such problems for more than three decades, transitions have been slow and geographically uneven. For effective change to happen, transport and mobility research needs fresh perspectives and better integration of knowledge from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Based on a Horizon Scanning approach, which allowed for a great deal of openness and variety in scholarly viewpoints, this paper presents a novel research agenda consisting of 8 themes and 100 research questions that may contribute to achieving environmentally sustainable mobility transitions within Europe. This research agenda highlights the need to not only support technological solutions for low-carbon mobility, but the importance of transformative policies that include new processes of knowledge production, civic participation and epistemic justice. We contend that the agenda points to the need for further research on the dynamics of science-society interactions., QC 20230825