Shared Learning Systems for Sustainability

Sustainability challenges are not merely technological, and knowledge needed to advance human and natural prosperity in the 21^st century differs from that which fueled the industrial revolution. Can knowledge institutions, bastions of tradition and slow to change in a rapidly changing world, be as effective in shaping contemporary history as they have been in the past? Can we evolve and transform to lead sustainability transitions, rather than becoming largely irrelevant scholarly commentators and analysts? Knowledge limitations appear to be most acute in the re-framing of critical research questions, in the learning process itself, and in our capacity to bring disciplinary knowledge to bear in more synergistic ways on sustainability questions. We need fundamental changes in how societies think about and build collective action to manage socio-environmental systems. To that end, how can we advance learning systems that genuinely bridge disciplinary and researcher-practitioner divides? At the University of Minnesota and Dartmouth College, and in our experience in science-policy and international research institutions, we have found the barriers to be least limiting in research-practitioner collaborations that are explicitly designed to co-produce knowledge, and in the education of undergraduates, who eagerly engage with new ways of understanding and meeting the sustainability challenges that they see clearly around them. Change is progressively more difficult at the graduate student, post-doctoral and faculty levels, due to incentives and rewards intrinsic to the way the academy and its disciplines are structured. Change from within the academy can be promoted by incorporating group learning systems for sustainability into inter-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs, by research programs that situate practitioners on equal footing with academicians, and by direct engagement of researchers with business leaders, professionals and policy-makers. We illustrate these with examples of sustainability education programs and research-practitioner collaborations in two projects, Minnesota 2050: Pathways to a Sustainable Future, and integrated food-energy systems in New England. Publication is at the core of academic structure and process. We need to develop and promote highly respected journals that encourage interdisciplinary, innovative and rigorous contributions to the new knowledge that can drive sustainability transitions in the “real world” of economic realities, human motivation, cultural context, power and politics.