Transdisciplinary doctoral training to address global sustainability challenges
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Global sustainability challenges, such as climate change and the plastics crisis, converge across disciplines and involve diverse stakeholders.Given the magnitude and interconnected nature of sustainability challenges, problem-solvers must be trained across disciplines.The United Nations Brundtland Commission's report "Our Common Future" articulated a definition of "sustainability" in the context of development: ". ..development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [1].Although interdisciplinary research teams are common, doctoral training traditionally focuses on gaining depth in a discipline, undermining the transdisciplinary nature of socio-ecological systems and environmental problems in the Anthropocene [2][3][4].Sustainability science connotes a sole field with shared concepts and theories; however, the National Research Council and others employ "the science of sustainability" to describe the use of multiple disciplines to address a common question, which leads toward an established field [5].In establishing sustainability science, the National Academy of Sciences notes that scientists must engage in dialogue and conduct research for environmental practitioners, from applied research to developing theory and concepts [6].Sustainability science conflicts with traditional doctoral training, which cabins deep research in a narrow frame.Transdisciplinary research offers an alternative.Jean Piaget defined transdisciplinary scholarship in 1970 as research that "would not only cover interactions or reciprocities between specialized research projects but would place these relationships within a total system without any firm boundaries between disciplines" [7]. Here we propose a roadmap for transdisciplinary doctoral training in the sustainability sciencesTransdisciplinary doctoral training is necessary to produce solutions-driven sustainability research, especially given that a 2015 Elsevier report notes that sustainability science is less interdisciplinary than the global average [6,8].While calls for transdisciplinary research have
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.018 | 0.021 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.016 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.050 | 0.015 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".