Transdisciplinary sustainability research (TSR) is essential to better understand and tackle wicked problems such as climate change and realisation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, despite the normative nobility, a significant share of these initiatives seems to remain merely rhetorical that fail to address both local level socio-environmental crises and global catastrophes such as rising emissions. To better understand structural and procedural barriers within a TSR project, this study conducted “research on (a transdisciplinary sustainability) research”. It locates two critical reasons why TSR is not able to deliver on its promises in offering effective guidance in addressing global sustainability crisis and discusses how it can be more equitable in knowledge generation in particular and science in general. Firstly, it necessitates TSR to challenge the neo-colonial regime and the hegemonic processes of a dominant Northern episteme around the concept of sustainability, as it otherwise threatens to reinforce and perpetuate the status quo that produces unsustainability from the top. Findings also reveal key procedural shortcomings (often connected to the hegemony itself) that include constricted temporal allowance, insecure scientists and nexus of techno-science markets, Northern academia, funding agencies and governments. This not only seems to affect universality and reflexivity of the TSR project, but also undermines justice and equity by reinforcing prevailing power orders. It seems essential to theoretically shift from domination to partnership, allying with multiple realities, legitimising diverse ontologies and validating epistemic plurality to help TSR gain greater credibility. Procedurally, reforms in institutional research and funding processes including extended temporal spaces and helping scientists to have better collaboration across scales seem critical to enable TSR projects realise their true potential.

中文翻译：

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在北方大学解构一个为期两年的跨学科可持续性项目：修辞贵族是否掩盖了程序和政治上的不和谐？

跨学科的可持续性研究（TSR）对于更好地理解和解决诸如气候变化和实现可持续发展目标（SDG）等邪恶问题至关重要。然而，尽管有规范的贵族，但这些倡议中有很大一部分似乎只是言辞，无法解决地方一级的社会环境危机和排放增加等全球性灾难。为了更好地理解TSR项目中的结构性和程序性障碍，本研究进行了“跨学科可持续性研究”。它找到了TSR无法在提供有效指导以解决全球可持续性危机方面兑现其承诺的两个关键原因，并讨论了它如何才能在尤其是知识生成和整个科学方面更加公平。首先，它有必要使TSR挑战围绕可持续性概念的新殖民主义政权和北部占主导地位的认识论的霸权进程，否则它有可能强化并永久维持从顶部产生不可持续性的现状。研究结果还揭示了关键的程序缺陷（通常与霸权本身有关），包括时间限制狭窄，科学家缺乏安全感以及技术科学市场，北方学术界，资助机构和政府之间的联系。这不仅影响了TSR项目的普遍性和自反性，而且还通过加强现行权力秩序而破坏了正义和公平。从理论上从统治转向合伙制，并结合多种现实，这似乎是必不可少的，使各种本体合法化并验证认识论的多元性，以帮助TSR获得更大的信誉。从程序上讲，机构研究和资助流程的改革，包括扩大时空，并帮助科学家在各个规模上更好地进行协作，对于使TSR项目实现其真正潜力至关重要。