Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research and Impactful Career Opportunities: The Role of Transacademic Interface Management

About:

Universities face the challenge of contributing to solving urgent sustainability problems such as climate change. As the last two decades have shown, transdisciplinary sustainability research (TSR) is particularly suitable for implementing this claim. At the same time, TSR often forces researchers to take on other roles in addition to their research role, such as intermediary or facilitation roles. This presents researchers with the challenge of providing both the resources and the necessary skills to manage the interface between research and society. For this reason, it is important to address transacademic interface management, i.e. the promotion and support of transdisciplinary collaborations between academics and practitioners. On the one hand, this describes a set of activities (= Transacademic/Transdisciplinary Interface Management (TIM)) and, on the other, a role that one assumes by managing them (TIM-roles).

In this presentation, we, Dr. Katja Brundiers (University of Freiburg, Co-director Transformative Sustainability Science) and Chantal Krumm (ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research), aim to introduce this interface work, explain why it is needed, what it looks like and what benefits it brings to various stakeholders. We would also like to point out that there is an interesting and upward career path associated with TIM, which could be of particular interest to young and emerging scientists. To this end, we will bring along various examples, share our experience and invite the audience to discuss TIM with us.

This session is part of the FRIAS Lunch Lectures series summer semester 2024: "SustainAbilities - Research Perspectives beyond Disciplines" and takes place at the FRIAS Lecture Hall, Albertstraße 19, 79104 Freiburg. The session is followed by snacks and drinks and the opportunity for networking in the FRIAS lounge.