In the face of global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality, achieving sustainable transformation has become an imperative goal for societies worldwide. Navigating the complexities of sustainability transformations requires innovative approaches that transcend disciplinary boundaries and have the capacity to support decision-makers and practitioners in handling the uncertainty associated with futures and pathways toward sustainable transformation.

Sustainable transformations, encompassing areas such as climate change, transport, agriculture and food, healthcare, etc., pose several challenges. One of the key challenges is that sustainable transformation is concerned with the future with a long-term scope spanning several decades. However, stakeholders involved in the transformation can implicitly perceive the future in different ways, four possible epistemologies of futures are (Muiderman et al., 2020):

1. The future is categorized into probable and improbable futures to mitigate future risks in strategic policy planning. Futures can be partially knowable through scientific exploration. Assessment of the future in terms of probable and improbable futures is made possible using methods such as forecasting, Delphi methods, horizon scanning, future commissions, strategic visioning, and backcasting.

2. Plausible futures are explored to navigate the future reflexively and develop adaptive capabilities. Due to fundamental and ineradicable uncertainties, future scenarios cannot be prioritized or reduced to just one most likely future. Uncertainty must be acknowledged, necessitating the exploration of several futures for which preparedness should be ensured. Methods such as probabilistic foresight, simulation modeling, weak signal-type approaches, scenarios, strategic visioning, and backcasting are utilized for this purpose.

3. Futures are construed as a social construct, expanding the view on possible futures beyond the probable and plausible futures because possibility depends on the perception of the audience. Methods employed include narratives, visions, scenarios, and back-casted pathways, as well as simulation gaming, community dialogues, training, education, and experimentation.

4. Futures are conceptualized as performative futures that analyze the performative power of futures, critically examining the political implications on the present. The future is characterized by unanswerable questions and uncertainties. Future statements or claims are seen as political interventions, as representations or "fabrications of the future". Methods used include prefiguration, critical application analysis of future narratives and images, interrogation of the political implications of future visions and pathways for the present, as well as theories on the framing of futures.

Transdisciplinary Research (TD) approaches offer numerous contributions to address the sustainable transformation challenges. For example, TD approaches can enhance understanding of the current state, identify desirable goals and vision, capture stakeholders’ preferences, opinions, expected futures, etc. and formulate transformation pathways toward the desirable goals. However, the areas that are less explored, or perhaps not explicitly, are how TD approaches and methods can help handle uncertainties associated with sustainable transformations and in what ways should TD address what constitutes 'Future'. This line of research can build on co-production of diverse knowledge systems, thereby promoting more inclusive, democratic, and transparent decision-making processes.

This workshop session brings together researchers and practitioners to explore the potential contributions of transdisciplinary approaches of methods in addressing the complexity concerning sustainable transformations, with a particular focus on different perspectives on futures. This workshop aims to explore four future epistemologies, used by different disciplines, and analyzes how different epistemologies might be an obstacle for or strengthen interactions between stakeholders. The workshop builds on the different contributions of TD to navigate the complexity of sustainable transformations and addresses the following research questions.

The overarching research question is In what ways can different the understating of epistemologies of futures in combination with different methods that are applied, accelerate sustainable transformation? We explore this through the following research questions:

● What is the current state of the art in TD fields concerning conceptualizing futures and methods to address futures in sustainable transformation?

● What are default modes of envisioning or anticipating futures when discussing sustainable transformations in different domains and roles?

● What are the research methods used and how do they relate to these different types of future epistemologies?

● What are ways to enhance our integration of and build upon the four epistemologies and methods?

● And how can we find synergies between certain epistemologies and methods to foster and accelerate sustainable transformations?

 

Organization of the workshop (90 min)

We ask participants to think about the following questions beforehand:

● What is/are your field(s) of work and research? What methods/approaches do you use to support sustainable transformation in your fields, particularly in dealing with the future aspects of the transformation?

● What is the current state of the art in your research field to deal with futures in sustainable transformation?

We ask participants to fill in a short survey at the entrance of the workshop (or even beforehand if possible) to find out what is their “default” epistemology and transdisciplinary method(s) they use or are familiar with. We use these results to infer the types of epistemology that the participants are most familiar with and use the information to distribute them to the groups for the next parts of the workshop. Ideally, participants do not work with the epistemology they are most familiar with, and the same for the method. Moreover, we aim to form groups with high diversity in disciplines. We show the results also to the participants to show the diversity in the group.

The workshop starts with a presentation on future epistemologies and how different epistemologies reflect different perspectives toward the future (10-15 min.). The presentations also show which transdisciplinary methods are commonly used in each epistemology to design/support sustainability transformations.

Participants are divided in different groups to explore the future epistemologies to a certain (assigned) sustainability transformation (e.g. transformations toward a sustainable train system, sustainable food production and consumption, and a sustainable healthcare system). Each group takes one of the four epistemologies, according to the four epistemologies mentioned before, and is assigned a transdisciplinary method to support sustainability transformation (30 min.). Each group is facilitated by one of the workshop organizers and they assist the group in working according to a given method with a future epistemology.

After working in the different groups, each group presents in a plenary session their findings/answers to the central question (35 min). Moreover, we ask the groups to reflect on the epistemology, the methods, and the implications of the sustainable transformations they were assigned to. We conclude the workshop with closing remarks (10 min.) and end with a short survey to ask what participants have gained/learned in terms of new methods/epistemologies.

Potential outputs and outcomes

● Knowledge sharing: enhance understanding of the contributions of Transdisciplinary approaches and methodologies in dealing with Future in Sustainable Transformations.

● Skill development: Support participants with practical methods to help them be mindful of the different epistemology of futures, their default modes of operation, and the possible implications in their works.

● Research agenda setting: Identify the current status of the field and potential research gaps in how transdisciplinary research approaches deals with uncertainty, and establish potential future research areas to address the gaps

● Networking and community building: Bring together transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners in the field of sustainable transformations to broaden their networks. Organisers of this workshop are embedded in the Transformations, fUTures and jusTIce for Sustainability and the Transformative sustainable change in Action (TransAct) of Radboud University.