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Call for Abstracts for a Spring Academy in Berlin and Brandenburg on May 13–16, 2024. Deadline: March 20, 2024

Knowledge is a living thing, sustained through dynamic reflexive processes. Whether at the level of cellular signaling pathways, Internet design, or sociocultural interactions, human understanding grows and accrues value through bi-directional transmission across networks of emitters and receptors. And the cross-fertilization of ideas from different sources is what keeps the process vigorous. This book represents a milestone in cultivating constructive exchange between experts and specialists from the physical, natural, economic and human science disciplines. From its sixteen original and high

This report describes the transdisciplinary framework for the UNISECO project and provides 'structures' to facilitate meaningful interactions for shared learning, synthesis, integration and co-construction of innovative, actionable knowledge for practical outcomes. Material has been drawn from resources of academia and practice, including the personal experience of the UNISECO consortium partners. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 773901.

The aim of the paper is to review the current Canadian debate about the future of sociology, centered on two sets of claims: William Carroll's vision for a transdisciplinary future of the social science and humanities (i.e. the transdisciplinarity argument) (Carroll 2013); and Antony J. Puddephatt & Neil McLaughlin's counter-vision for a sociology bound by its traditional disciplinary boundaries (i.e. the traditionalism argument) (Puddephatt and McLaughlin 2015). The paper provides an analysis of the debate in question and argues that Carroll's and Puddephatt & Neil McLaughlin's reflexive diagnostics regarding the future of sociology offer two distinct, and competing, understandings of the discipline's nature, purpose and relevance, as well as two different sensibilities regarding an audience the discipline of sociology is, or ought to be, speaking to. In addition, an argument put forth is that Carroll's public-political and Puddephatt & McLaughlin's professional-organizational models of sociology have important implications both for mapping out the future trajectories of the discipline, and for gauging sociology's role and position within, and relationship to, the 'universe' of society.

This Special Issue aims to reflect on knowledge co-production and transdisciplinarity, exploring the mutual interaction between water governance and water research. We do so with contributions that bring examples from diverse parts of the world: Bolivia, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Namibia, the Netherlands, Palestine, and South Africa. Key insights brought by these contributions include the importance of engaging the actors from early stages of transdisciplinary research, and the need for an in-depth understanding of the diverse needs, competences, and power of actors and the water governance system in which knowledge co-production takes place. Further, several future research directions are identified, such as the examination of knowledge backgrounds according to the individual and collective thought styles of different actors. Together, the eight papers included in this Special Issue constitute a significant step toward a better understanding of knowledge co-production and transdisciplinarity, with a common thread for being reflective and clear about their complexity, and the political implications and risks they pose for inclusive, plural and just water research and governance.