Neither right nor wrong? Ethics of collaboration in transformative research for sustainable futures

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...

Landscape of participatory city makers: A distinct understanding through different lenses

Today, citizens, professionals, civil servants, social enterprises, and others form different types of coalitions to overcome the challenges facing our modern cities. In this paper, the particularities of these types of groups are characterised and categorised into ten different types of city makers. Generally, these types of city makers bring...

Rethinking Design: A critical perspective to embrace societal challenges

Co-Creation Dynamics in Urban Living Labs

Citizens and urban policy makers are experimenting with collaborative ways to tackle wicked urban issues, such as today’s sustainability challenges. In this article, we consider one particular way of collaboration in an experimental setting: Urban Living Labs (ULLs). ULLs are understood as spatially embedded sites for the co-creation of...

Ten types of emerging city makers

Shaping Spaces of Interaction for Sustainable Transitions

Combining backcasting and transition management in the community arena

This paper presents the theoretical basis and the methodological framework of the community arena, a co-creation tool for sustainable behaviour by local communities and consumers. The community arena focuses on articulating, confronting and connecting individual inner contexts in a participatory process so as to influence both how individuals...