From science-policy to science-policy-society: enabling transformative change in practice

Résumé fourni par la source

Transformative change is widely recognised as necessary to address interconnected, persistent sustainability crises. Yet, despite growing experimentation with co-production and societal engagement, dominant science–policy arrangements remain largely assessment-oriented and geared toward incremental optimisation. While the 2024 IPBES Transformative Change Assessment was a landmark articulating drivers and principles of transformation, less attention has been paid to how science–policy interfaces themselves must reorganise to enable transformative action. This perspective addresses that gap. We argue that enabling transformative change requires reconfiguring the science–policy interface toward a science–policy–society interface embedding collaboration, experimentation, and collective learning. Drawing on insights from transformative research and our own transdisciplinary experiences, we propose three institutional conditions: (1) embracing the contested nature of transformative change as a productive space; (2) shifting research and policy from incremental improvements to transformative futures and emerging alternatives; and (3) institutionalizing reciprocal, action-oriented collaboration that enables sustained experimentation and collective agency. These conditions must be reinforced through institutional reforms in agenda-setting, funding and evaluation logics, and mechanisms ensuring continuity and societal memory. We conclude that institutional reform and transformative practice co-evolve, positioning science–policy–society configurations as enabling infrastructures for sustainability transformations.

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