Accompanying Transformation-Oriented Research: Contributions, Relations and Methods

Societal transformations, as fundamental change of socio-ecological and socio-technical systems towards more sustainability and justice, are high on scientific and political agendas. Transformational sustainability research seeks to understand and develop solutions to persistent problems of unsustainability. Examples include real-world and urban living labs, transition management or transdisciplinary case studies. These address problems in complex systems in future-oriented and participatory ways and catalyze learning and innovation integrating diverse forms of knowledge. Yet, transformation-oriented research faces various challenges with regard to knowledge production, process facilitation and decision-making. This chapter presents accompanying research—research that accompanies and researches others’ research—to effectively complement and support transformation-oriented research. First, possible contributions of accompanying research regarding knowledge production and process management are discerned and related methods and techniques are illustrated. Second, possibilities to shape relationships between accompanied and accompanying research are outlined and core balancing acts characterizing these relations discussed. Again, orientation is given to shape relations in practice. To map contributions and relationships, the chapter builds on expert knowledge and scholarly literature, synthesizing it with practical experiences including from accompanying several German real-world laboratories. Third, an in-depth case study of accompanying a long-running transdisciplinary experiment at UNFCCC climate change conferences, the Co-Creative Reflection and Dialogue Space, is reflected showing the value and challenges of accompanying research in practice.