9. Change

Abstract

Making improvements in a problem situation is central to transdisciplinary endeavours, which makes an understanding of the complexities of change and change processes critical to success. Four ways of thinking about change to tame its unruly nature are considered: 1) where change occurs (government, business and civil society), 2) degrees of change (incremental, reform and transformational), 3) different types of change-related activity (continuing improvement, combatting practices or behaviours that have negative outcomes for individuals or society, conservation, adaptation, mitigation, passive opposition and active opposition) and 4) harnessing the different ways of thinking about change from different disciplines and stakeholders. Six approaches to change that are or could be used in transdisciplinary endeavours are then considered: 1) theory of change, 2) research implementation, 3) scaling up, 4) systems change, 5) incentives and 6) choice architecture. Understanding the complexities of change and change processes is critical to successful transdisciplinarity and core to its future development. Show more