Search

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to take up and contribute to understanding an important emerging theme in recent literature on global environmental change and socio-ecological issues (including Slaughter's The Biggest Wake-up Call in History): “positive reframing”. The paper also aims to deepen consideration of the potential for “overshoot and collapse” futures and related concerns by foresight practitioners.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on, and presents, a thematic analytical literature review.Findings – In total, four underlying drivers of increased reframing and four central themes in positive reframes are identified; mental “frames” informing and limiting foresight work need to be openly communicated and reflected on – such practitioner reflexivity is often missing in foresight work, such as in The Biggest Wake-up Call in History by Richard Slaughter.Practical implications – The paper includes discussion of the implications for futures practice, including the role of mental frames and reframing. The author suggests futures practitioners can play important new roles in challenging the recent re-emergence of influential forms of environmental determinism and foresight practitioners need to be more wary of the potential for “narrative bias”.Social implications – Futures assessment is increasingly needed to guide policy and action in improving human-environment relations. Barriers and opportunities to fulfilling this societal need must be understood.Originality/value – The paper helps to deepen the consideration of “re-framing” and environmental limits by foresight practitioners and theorists. In doing so, the paper also brings in new concepts from other fields (such as cognitive psychology and Science and Technology Studies) into the foresight/futures field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transdisciplinary research is increasingly used in projects dealing with transitions to sustainable, resilient and low-carbon societies. Transdisciplinary research projects require collaboration and coordination between researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds. Academic literature provides valuable insights on designing, facilitating, leading and evaluating transdisciplinary projects. While a substantial body of literature explores the challenges associated with transdisciplinary research, there is a scarcity of case studies exploring the challenges faced during different phases of project execution. In this paper we present a reflective account and analysis of our experiences during the first fifteen months of a transdisciplinary research project. The project is used as a case study, following a participatory action research methodology. Our findings verified the three types of challenge mentioned in the literature – inherent, institutional and teamwork related. This paper identifies a fourth type – emergent – that has not been discussed in the literature. Emergent challenges introduce uncertainty into TDR projects and are uncontrollable. Such challenges require research consortium leaders to develop adaptive strategies, and to take a mediation and leadership role in dealing with them. The article makes the following recommendations: emergent challenges require emergent strategies; funding should be more flexible to account for the nature of TDR research; TDR could be evaluated on the basis of its overall impact rather than on inflexible ‘deliverables’; academic publishing strategies must be incorporated into TDR projects; team development and co-location should be facilitated; and academic institutions should include performance and promotion criteria encouraging researchers to undertake roles in TDR projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]