Advancing strong sustainability in transdisciplinary research: Opportunities, barriers, and strategies

Abstract Transdisciplinary approaches emphasize the need to engage with diverse actors to co‐produce knowledge and enable societal change to address interlinked socio‐ecological crises. This paper investigates how transdisciplinary partnerships can better work with strong sustainability perspectives, especially in contexts where actors hold differing worldviews. We explore the tension between transdisciplinary approaches and sustainability discourses. We begin by presenting the often contentious and divergent perspectives on strong and weak sustainability discourses, stressing that preferential engagement with weak sustainability approaches risks undermining strong sustainability transitions. Based on insights from reflexive practice on three research projects and the outcomes of a conference workshop, this article presents 12 strategies used to address common barriers to engaging with strong sustainability. These include researchers socializing new narratives (e.g., degrowth) and facilitating safe spaces to deliberate and explore societal mental models and paradigms. The findings underscore the political nature of knowledge production and stress the benefits of reflexivity at both individual and institutional levels. Reflecting on the politics of knowledge is not only an intellectual exercise, positionalities and interests of researchers and/or their organisations affect research agendas and resources. This research contributes to advancing sustainability transitions by highlighting strategies for questioning and challenging dominant economic and political systems within transdisciplinary partnerships, opening opportunities for deeper transitions toward more equitable and sustainable futures.