Translating Transformations: What We’ve Learned So Far

Over the past months, our team has been exploring a big question: how can we promote and integrate critical social science (CSS) literacy to improve transdisciplinary research projects that aim for transformative change (TTCIs)? By CSS, we mean scholarship that addresses power dynamics in society. This focus is at the core of our SNSF-funded project Translating Transformations.

In the first phase of our work, we took a close look at two Swiss-based inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research programs: ValPar.CH (Values of Ecological Infrastructure in Swiss parks) and University Priority Program Global Change and Biodiversity (URPP-GCB). These programs brought together researchers from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to tackle pressing sustainability challenges. In our analysis, we wanted to understand: how do issues of power actually play out in such collaborations? How are power, agency, diversity, hegemony, and pluralization understood and engaged in these programs (see resources)? What tools could be developed to improve CSS literacy and integration in future TTCIs?

What we looked at

We combined online survey responses from 54 participants with nine semi-structured interviews with researchers from both programs. This mix of quantitative and qualitative methods helped us see not only how researchers understand CSS concepts (see resources) and the idea of transformative change, but also how they apply them in practice across disciplines and backgrounds. 

What we found

• Transformative change (TC) is perceived differently. Many social scientists and humanities scholars aligned with the understandings of TC as a system-wide process of rethinking and reshaping society. Some natural scientists, on the other hand, were more skeptical, finding the concept abstract or overly ideological. Still, across both programs, there was broad agreement: transdisciplinary collaboration and co-creation with communities are central to transformative processes.

  🧩 To support this reflection, we developed “Power in Change” (coming soon) — a tool that helps researchers critically assess proposed solutions to societal and environmental problems and explore which of these represent transformative change.
  

• Most participants thought power dynamics were managed well, though some noted that power dynamics were still at play. Hierarchies linked to academic rank, discipline, gender, and geographic origin were noted by some participants as influencing who was included, how decisions were made, and who had access to resources. While most participants felt comfortable expressing their ideas in the programs, early-career researchers and those in marginalized positions described experiencing barriers. Notably, people’s sense that resources were shared fairly was closely tied to whether participants felt power dynamics were well managed.

  
  

  🧩 To help research teams surface and reflect on these dynamics, we designed tools such as “The Power of Representation” and “The Power of Truth”.

  
  

• Inclusion and diversity processes would benefit from active inclusion and attention to structural barriers. While both programs strived for interdisciplinary diversity, some participants described limited inclusion of researchers from the Global South and minority backgrounds. Participants identified structural barriers—such as visa restrictions, age limits on funding, and gendered care roles—that constrained participation and equity. A recurring theme was the need to move beyond tokenistic diversity toward meaningful inclusion. 

  
  

  🧩 Our tool “The Power of Inclusion” was designed to assist with this dilemma.

  
  

• Whose knowledge counts? A recurring theme was epistemic hegemony: We identified a tendency to prioritize natural science (NS) approaches over perspectives from the social sciences (SS) and humanities (H). While ValPar.CH was perceived as more balanced in its integration of SS/H, participants in both programs perceived a dominance of NS in framing research questions and defining what “valid” knowledge looked like. This affected the visibility and perceived legitimacy of SS/H contributions, according to participants, especially in cases where qualitative data could not be “mapped” or quantified in conventional NS formats. Despite these challenges, participants also pointed to examples of successful pluralization, increased mutual recognition, and growing awareness of the need for more inclusive and reflexive research practices.

  
  

  🧩 Our tools such as “Picture this: Seeing through Epistemic Lenses” and “The Power of Assumptions” (coming soon) were developed to encourage critical reflection on these epistemic hierarchies.

Why this matters

These insights remind us that transdisciplinary sustainability research isn’t just about bringing different expertise to the table — it’s also about how that table is set. Our findings highlight the importance of paying sustained attention to power relations, creating space for diverse kinds of knowledge, and practicing reflexivity throughout the process. Without this, we risk reproducing the very hierarchies and exclusions that sustainability research seeks to overcome.

In short, our work so far shows that transformative change in research is as much about how we collaborate as it is about what we study. This finding inspired our upcoming “The Power of Process” tool (coming soon). Paying attention to these often “hidden” power dynamics may be the key to making sustainability research truly transformative.

What’s next

We continue to use these findings to co-develop and test tools (see toolbox 🧩) that help future projects engage more critically and fairly with questions of power and knowledge. The aim is to strengthen what we call critical social science literacy and to foster more equitable inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.