CIENS Networking: Studying Inter- and Transdisciplinary Methods in Environmental Research

With increasing urban growth, how urbanization is perceived, and what knowledge is included or excluded in planning and policy making becomes highly significant. Urbanization is conceptualized, viewed and handled differently in differing knowledge traditions. Knowledge is used at every policy stage, in problem identification and policy formulation, as well as for policy strategies and solutions. The project's part of departure is the perceptions of urbanization and the use of knowledge in the planning for sustainable cities in the Norwegian context. The proposed project consists of four main work packages: WP1: Knowledge traditions in urban planning, WP2: The Knowledge-Policy interaction when it comes to urban environmental challenges, WP3: Comparative international perspectives on urbanization and environmental challenges, Oslo, London and Chennai compared, WP 4: Overcoming knowledge fragmentation, testing the claim for interdisciplinarity in urban and environmental planning. The project will employ social science perspectives in order to study the knowledge base for problem definitions and policy solutions and how they vary across sectoral, disciplinary, and national borders. By combining theoretical insights from sociology of knowledge and studies of profession, science and technology studies and development research, the project will bring new perspectives and theoretical innovation to studies of urban and environmental planning, which have so far frequently been left to spatial planners themselves. Methodologically, the use of mixed methods aims at new ways of approaching planning studies. The knowledge traditions, the knowledge-policy and cross-disciplinary interaction in urban environmental planning will be investigated qualitatively by discourse analysis of policy documents, informant interviews and focus groups, and quantitatively through a web-survey to map the extent of knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinarity in urban environmental management.

CIENS proposes a network initiative for assessing methods for inter- and transdisciplinary environmental and sustainability research. The networking will draw on and further develop four interdisciplinary RCN/M2015-projects, from different sub-programmes, (Eutropia, SinoTropia, Vega 2045 and UrbaKnow. These projects are led by CIENS-researchers, professor in environmental chemistry Rolf D Vogt, UiO, ecologist Olav Skarpaas, NINA, and sociologist Vibeke Nenseth, TØI. They are all members of CIENS Research Forum, the coordinating entity within CIENS responsible for the cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary scientific interaction, across natural and social sciences and the university and institute research divide. CIENS Research Forum has a pro-active role in promoting and initiating, facilitating and coordinating common research strategies and projects, networking and acquisitions. The proposed network activity will, first, be the organising of a study tour for approaching highly experienced inter- and transdisciplinary environmental research arena.The participants will be the CIENS-coordinators in CIENS Research Forum, one from each of the seven environmental institutes CICERO, MET, NIBR, NILU, NINA, NIVA, TØI, and two CIENS-coordinators from UiO (SV and matnat). Related to the study tour an open workshop will be organised, to present learnt lessons among CIENS-researchers and funding and collaborative, private and public, partners. The planned study tour will go to Switzerland, to learn about the Swiss Network for Transdisciplinary Research (td-net) - and, possibly, also to (the nearby) EU?s Joint Research Centre, in Ispra, Italy.