At the beginning of February we had our first Leverage Points annual retreat with the 21 of us. This is the fourth important milestone since the start of this project in April 2015. After laying down the conceptual foundations in early November, having kick-off meetings together with the post-docs and PhDs in September and November, this retreat got us thinking at what makes Leverage Points as a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Our motivation was to bring individual aims together and ‘think like a project’. We spent three intense days exchanging ideas, gaining fresh outlooks, and making decisions on key research questions, cross cutting themes, and the transformative case studies. And here is an overview of our struggle.

Day 1 was dedicated to sharing the progress made within our main WorkPackages and creating a common background. ReStructure (WP2), ReConnect (WP3), ReThink (WP4), and the Formative Accompanying Researcher(s) (WP 7) gave their updates, clarified their conceptual underpinnings and research aims. WP5 (the transformative case studies) presented the current state of the case study selection, described the potential cases, introduced some of the case partners, and highlighted opportunities and challenges.
Most importantly, as a foundation for the work done within Integration and Synthesis (WP6) we tried to see how these pieces fit together. We scoped for synergies and ways to align to the project rationale: understanding systems’ transformations towards sustainability by going beyond descriptive analytical research towards transformational sustainability research, and by using and advancing ‘leverage points’ (Meadows 1999) as a key concept.

On Day 2 we continued looking into the relations between the work packages with an emphasis on the transformative case studies where we strive to link conceptual and empirical insights into place-based studies dealing with actionable knowledge. We mapped our research outlines (using VUE) to the potential case studies, in an exercise. This also facilitated the selection of the transformative case studies within the two study regions of Leverage Points: Transylvania and Lower Saxony.
During Day 2 we also heard and discussed about the interests and concerns of the PhD students, in particular in relation to the transformative case studies.

On Day 3 we focused on discussing and planning fieldtrips to Lower Saxony and Transylvania, as well as tasks and actions of the team members until the end of this year. Day 3 also included a passionate intermezzo from our administrative staff.

The retreat in pics

Now three outcomes and highlights of this vibrant experience:

1. We saw how the individual research pieces fit together, the overlapping points, and what is the resulting big picture. By zooming in and out individual thesis, work packages, and thematic fields (food and energy), we began to solve the Leverage Points puzzle. After many of us worked in disciplinary silos during the past months, the retreat was the signal for coming together in a more consolidated academic research team.

Bonding and nurturing by dialogue: Gradually, during the three days, we tuned into each other’s epistemic living spaces (Felt 2009), calibrated our academic ‘realities’, adjusted our epistemological and ontological expectations, bridged worldviews and knowledge systems, negotiated our values, and checked our normative assumptions. There is still a lot of work to be done especially regarding timing, communication, and coordination, but this little ‘dance’ brought us a closer.

2. Despite some initial confusion, which, as somebody put it, is an intrinsic feature of such a complex setting, we decided on two transformative case studies. Following up field scoping in search of spots of societal need and interest in Lower Saxony and Romania, we selected among two potential case studies in Germany and three potential cases in Romania.

3. Finally, this retreat led us not only to thinking like a research project, but ultimately to ‘feeling’ as a team of people. After some energizing rounds of ‘research speed dating’ we gained a fresh non-academic outlook on our project and decided we are happy to be working together.

The retreat in pics

Although we are going to use this blog more intensively or at least on a regular basis, you can also check other blogs and media channels connected to some of us. Please feel free to let us know what you would be interested in finding on this ‘updates’ page of our blog.

Blogs
Sustainability Governance
Ideas for Sustainability
Ecology Statistics Sustainability Conservation Happiness
Sustainability Logbook

Twitter

https://twitter.com/HenrikvnWehrden

References
Felt, Ulrike. “Knowing and living in academic research.” Convergence and heterogeneity in research cultures in the European context (2009): 242.

On Friday 8^th January, Andra, Daniel and I headed out to Transylvania for a week of ‘scoping’ fieldwork. Our aim was to come up with some practical options for the transdisciplinary case study in Romania. More information on the case studies and their role in the project is here. In this blog post, I will just give and overview of the highlights of the trip, and a few key emerging discussions.

Highlight 1: The richness of opportunity

Prior to the trip, Andra had invested a lot of time into locating organisations and projects with potential for collaboration. She drew a lot on her experience from her PhD work in Joern Fischer’s sustainable landscapes project, and with assistance from Tibi Hartel. We therefore met with a range of organisations and were able to present the Leverage Points project and ourselves, and hear about an extensive range of exciting initiatives. We learned about emerging cultural centres, ecotourism ventures, farming associations, and projects to conserve and promote traditional meadows and tree pastures. All were presented by dedicated people who were passionate about what they were doing, and obviously had deep understanding of the systems they were working in. To be surrounded by such enthusiasm and skill was a very positive experience for me, and left me (even more) excited about the work we will do in Romania.

Highlight 2: Links to the empirical (‘traditional science’) work

For all of the possibilities we saw, I could see clear links to the empirical elements of Leverage Points. The TD case could learn from the empirical work and vice versa. For example, in the case of a cultural centre, the reconnect workpackage could help to inform design in terms of understanding how to connect people to their environment. But the same workpackage could also use the case as an observation or study opportunity to test ideas. Such opportunity to fit between the different components of our project help to confirm the relevance of our study design.

Highlight 3: Opportunities for team discussion

During travel time and meals, we had plenty of time as a team for discussion. We talked about the TD case studies. This included weighing up the pros and cons and practicalities of cases we had seen; or thinking about what the tangible case would be if we worked with a particular organization. Such conversations are essential for case selection and development. And gave us space to develop a shared understanding on what was important, and what we are aiming for. Additionally, we talked a lot about the overall project, how we thought it was going, tensions we are experiencing, etc. None of these conversations were representative of the overall project – we were just three people. But I certainly find it helpful to hear about individual experiences so that I can consider them when thinking about how we manage and develop the project.

Next steps

Now that we are back, I think we all need to catch up on sleep and emails. Andra is currently collating her notes on the TD case, and I am doing the same for my thoughts on the fit to the empirical work packages. We have had a debrief to discuss our favourite cases, and what the tangible case actually is (place, people, topic, actions, etc.). We are now putting together all our thoughts to come up with a short list of 2 or 3 cases, and to ‘map’ how the empirical work could fit to it. These will then be presented at the project retreat in February, with the intention that we select our case then.

Leuphana University Lüneburg (foundation under public law), Faculty of Sustainability invites applications for 8 new PhD positions within a new, trans-disciplinary project funded by the State of Lower Saxony and Volkswagen Foundation entitled: Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge

All eight positions will be as PhD Researcher– Wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in, salary group E 13 TV-L (50%). Starting ideally October 2015, for a duration of up to 3 years.

Application deadline: 30th June, 2015

To apply
The official job adverts for all eight positions and details of how to apply can be found at http://www.leuphana.de/bewerben/jobs-und-karriere/forschung-lehre.html PDF versions of the official adverts can be found at https://leveragepoints.org/jobs/

Leuphana University Lüneburg  invites expressions of interest for 8 new PhD positions within the trans-disciplinary project funded by the State of Lower Saxony and Volkswagen Foundation entitled: Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge.

Details of the eight positions can be found at www.leveragepoints.org/jobs/

There were some technical problems with the Leuphana university’s email servers last week. If you have submitted an application for one of the four postdoc positions and have not received an email confirmation please resend your application.

The deadline for all four postdoc positions is the 10th of March 2015.

We have now published the adverts for four post doc positions on the Leverage Points project.  Job descriptions, person specifications and information on how to apply are available on the Jobs page.