Short abstract:

New efforts around transformative and open research indicate an emerging realignment between research and societal challenges. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is lacking. We select research communities in open and transformative research and explore how they frame and justify their efforts.

Long abstract:

Universities are presently grappling with how to address complex and rapidly worsening socio-environmental challenges of recent decades. Several research efforts have emerged around Transformative research’. This ‘transformative’ turn builds on similar discussions concerning open science and transformative innovation policy. These developments are indicative of an emerging realignment between research activities and societal challenges. Nevertheless, how transformative and open research is actually taking root remains poorly supported by empirical evidence, particularly in technical universities that are strongly tied to more traditional conceptions of engineering and natural sciences research. This paper seeks to uncover whether and how transformative research is emerging in the research cultures, structures, and practices at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

To better understand the present status of TR at TU/e, we employed a mixed method comprising a bibliometric and a qualitative component. We select research communities and individuals likely to pursue some form of (transformative) sustainability research and explore qualitatively how these communities frame and justify their efforts in the context of the credibility cycle (Latour and Woolgar 1986).

Our results show that TR communities orient themselves towards framing of transformative research emerging in the literature, albeit with diverse focal points, emphasis, and approach to alternatives and the emphasis on technological solutions. Across all communities studied, the rationale mentioned combinations of urgency, complexity, justice, diversity, and curiosity. Transformative research did not stand out as an entirely new goal but rather as a complementary orientation additional to other goals.