Abstract. Despite its many advantages, teaching transdisciplinary is a costly enterprise. Transferring diverse theoretical, methodological, and practical skills may require several teaching staff; developing meaningful stakeholder interaction is time-intensive; and managing the research process demands significant efforts in logistics and coordination. This article seeks to make two distinct contributions. Conceptually, it introduces a framework for distinguishing between soft, inclusive, reflexive, and hard transdisciplinarity, based on the notion that there are diminishing returns to all features of the practice. Empirically, it examines a classroom simulation -the Sustainable Development Indicator Exercise (SDIE) -as an example of soft transdisciplinarity. In the SDIE interdisciplinary student groups play the role of policy advisers. Building on a concrete transdisciplinary research project, they explore their understanding of sustainability, develop a multi-criteria decision making method for assessing sustainability criteria and indicators, elaborate and present their results, and reflect on their experience. All aspects of the exercise follow the logic of role playing: organizing group interaction, distributing responsibilities, interacting with their political principal, presenting their findings, and evaluating their progress. Experience from the simulation reveals insights into ways students address and express concerns with objectivity, transparency, deliberation, and balancing sustainability; it also points to ways for moving beyond soft transdisciplinarity.
Abstract. Global environmental governance is growing increasingly complex and recent scholarship and practice raise a number of questions about the continued feasibility of negotiating and implementing an ever-larger set of global environmental agreements. In the search for alternative conceptual models and normative orders, regional environmental governance (REG) is (re)emerging as a significant phenomenon in theory and practice. Although environmental cooperation has historically been more prevalent at the regional than at the global level, and has informed much of what we know today about international environmental cooperation, REG has been a neglected topic in the scholarly literature on international relations and international environmental politics. This introduction to the special issue situates theoretical arguments linked to REG in the broader literature, including the nature of regions, the location of regions in multilevel governance, and the normative arguments advanced for and against regional orders. It provides an overview of empirical work; offers quantitative evidence of REG's global distribution; advances a typology of REG for future research; and introduces the collection of research articles and commentaries through the lens of three themes: form and function, multilevel governance, and participation.
BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
Is higher education capable of promoting learning for change? Can transformative learning nurture spaces for innovation in education for sustainable development? A call to action from saguf.
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