Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: the case of Zones Ateliers

The French Zones Ateliers network is a CNRS national research infrastructure designed to promote long-term research on socio-ecological systems.

Through this device, the thesis – entitled Practical challenges of transdisciplinary research in sustainability sciences: the case of Zones Ateliers – looks at transdisciplinary research in sustainability sciences (TRSS), to understand its limited diffusion and examine the practical challenges faced by the research communities and actors involved.

It is based on a set of qualitative methods (interviews, documentary analysis, observations) and on a semi-quantitative analysis of the data collected.

The thesis aims to:

1) Examine the extent to which research communities reorganize when they become involved in SST;

2) Study the actors involved in TRSS projects, their roles and the distribution of these roles between the different categories of actors;

3) Analyze the relationship between the approaches and methods used in TRSS projects and the severity of the problems they seek to solve.

The thesis focuses on the entire Zones Ateliers network, of which the Zone Atelier Alpes is particularly representative of mountain areas. It involves collaboration with a large number of public, private, associative and citizen partners.