Students as change agents in a town-wide sustainability transformation: the Oberlin Project at Oberlin College

Implementing Sustainability Co-Creation between Universities and Society: A Typology-Based Understanding

“…For example, newly created or modified urban spaces can serve as living laboratories to generate new opportunities for data collection and scientific monitoring to inform policy [61]. Alternatively, some high-intensity initiatives involve knowledge production by compiling best practices from elsewhere to guide local implementation actions [28].…”

“…Many involve built environment-focused measures to reform urban environments, often with interlinked efforts to drive green economic development, social innovation, and socio-technical experimentation. Relevant cases include the Oberlin Project by Oberlin College in the USA [28], the Manchester Corridor by the University of Manchester and partners [61] and the Newcastle Science City Partnership by Newcastle University in the UK [37], and also, District-Urban Lab by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany [36]. Others such as Rust to Green by Cornell University in the USA [62] strive to co-create societal transformations by fostering social innovation and capacity building for citizens or municipalities, integrating citizens in town planning, and re-imagining decayed urban spaces.…”

“…Such cases of sustainability co-creation are typically examined from the perspective of university research or outreach functions. Yet scholarship features several cases demonstrating that sustainability co-creation with external stakeholders can also be carried out by integrating students and exploiting the education function of the university [16,[27][28][29]. Sustainability co-creation can therefore serve as a powerful means of harnessing often misaligned university missions of research, education, and outreach to place-specific needs and sustainability challenges.…”

Towards systemic change: on the co-creation and evaluation of a study programme in transformative sustainability science with stakeholders in Luxembourg

“…Approaches such as those described by Evans et al [39] and Rosenberg et al [40] in this volume seem complementary to the approach of building a dedicated study programme to build capacity for engaging scientists and citizens in sustainability science. Possible forms for such institutional spaces can include multi-year research projects.…”

Learning and teaching in the regional learning environment : enabling students and teachers to cross boundaries in multi-stakeholder practices

“…To make use of the transformative potential of boundary crossing, and at the same time overcome its barriers, people should develop 'boundary crossing competence' i.e. the ability to work and communicate across different practices and become transformation agents (Augsburg, 2014;Rosenberg Daneri et al, 2015;Walker & Nocon, 2007).…”