Description

Working towards sustainable solutions requires involving professionals and stakeholders from all sectors of society into research and teaching. This often presents a challenge to scholars at universities, as they lack capacity and time needed for negotiating different agendas, languages, competencies,

Working towards sustainable solutions requires involving professionals and stakeholders from all sectors of society into research and teaching. This often presents a challenge to scholars at universities, as they lack capacity and time needed for negotiating different agendas, languages, competencies, and cultures among faculty, students, and stakeholders. Management approaches and quality criteria have been developed to cope with this challenge, including concepts of boundary organizations, transdisciplinary research, transition management, and interface management. However, few of these concepts present comprehensive proposals how to facilitate research with stakeholder participation while creating educational opportunities along the lifecycle of a project. The article focuses on the position of a transacademic interface manager (TIM) supporting participatory sustainability research and education efforts. We conceptualize the task portfolio of a TIM; outline the capacities a TIM needs to possess in order to successfully operate; and propose an educational approach for how to train students in becoming a TIM. For this, we review the existing literature on TIMs and present insights from empirical sustainability research and educational projects that involved TIMs in different functions. The article provides practical guidance to universities on how to organize these critical endeavors more effectively and to offer students an additional career perspective.

Reuse Permissions
  • Downloads
    pdf (675.6 KB)

    Details

    Title
    • The Role of Transacademic Interface Managers in Transformational Sustainability Research and Education
    Date Created
    2013-10-30
    Resource Type
  • Text
  • Collections this item is in
    Identifier
    • Digital object identifier: 10.3390/su5114614
    • Identifier Type
      International standard serial number
      Identifier Value
      2071-1050

    Citation and reuse

    Cite this item

    This is a suggested citation. Consult the appropriate style guide for specific citation guidelines.

    Brundiers, K., Wiek, A., & Kay, B. (2013). The Role of Transacademic Interface Managers in Transformational Sustainability Research and Education. Sustainability, 5(11), 4614-4636. doi:10.3390/su5114614

    Machine-readable links