In real-world laboratories (RwLs), researchers do more than conventional research. They slip into different roles. Why do they “change faces”? Based on comparisons of three urban RwLs, we analyse the process steps and conditions influencing the choices made by researchers
to adopt certain roles.Real-world laboratories (RwLs) often put researchers in highly demanding research contexts regarding their roles and self-conceptions. Helpful roles of researchers have been described but still little is known about the factors influencing the adoption of certain
roles. Using data from three parallel RwLs in Wuppertal, Germany, we found four roles of researchers: the reflective scientist, the facilitator, the change agent and the (self-)reflexive scientist. We sequenced the RwLs into situations and analysed them by RwL process
steps and conditions, considering the roles of researchers as outcomes. Although the conditions convey only limited explanatory power, there was a consistent picture that being pressured to carry out real-world action, having a practice partner with fewer resources and working without a functional
project group is (in conjunction) sufficient to cause the researcher to partake in activities beyond conventional research. Process steps played a minor role. Our research on factors influencing the adoption of roles may help RwL researchers to perform their roles as intended.
Gekürzte und geringfügig geänderte Fassung der Dissertationsschrift mit dem Originaltitel "Die Vertretung zukünftiger Generationen in der Demokratie. Theorie und Praxis der Proxy-Repräsentation".
This paper suggests that the field of environmental governance, policy and planning (EGPP) may be seen as an (emerging) scientific field, which can be characterised as 'fragmented adhocracy', explaining the widespread failure to produce robust and cumulative knowledge. We argue that in order to produce reliable knowledge and to become credible in the realm of policy and planning praxis, EGPP research needs a major reform impetus. To this end, we propose three areas for reform, which cover (1) an agreed canon of definitions shared within the community, while being open to reinterpretations and novel concepts; (2) the stronger use of metaanalytical methods such as the case survey methodology, or systematic reviews, to cumulate published case-based evidence; (3) a systematic recognition of the institutional, political and social context of governance interventions, which becomes increasingly important to the extent that meta-analyses reveal general patterns and trends which nonetheless vary with context. For each agenda item, we briefly formulate the motivating problem and an ideal-typical vision to strive for, and sketch out the pragmatic, epistemological and normative limits to its realisation. We close with overall reflections on our research reform agenda and suggest pathways for implementation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.