A transdisciplinary approach to nuclear waste management: Opening research with a Citizens’ Working Group

Science often tackles sustainability challenges by not only addressing them (inter-)disciplinary but additionally engaging in societal aspects through transdisciplinary research. Siting a deep-geological repository is a technical and societal challenge. In this study, we present a unique approach that entailed a 4 year collaboration between our research team and a Citizen's Working Group (CWG) on nuclear waste management in Germany. We explored whether and how knowledge could be effectively transferred among researchers and the CWG, as well as how mutual trust could be fostered and maintained. Seventeen ordinary citizens across Germany were selected via a multistep process, including an online survey and interviews. Their contributions provided valuable empirical insights and informed interdisciplinary research questions. We describe this new and challenging process with its multiple methods (surveys, workshops, observations, and interviews) and reflect on our experiences based on a rich set of empirical data. Finally, we discuss the potential for generalization and application of this approach to other topics.