The CoPs aims, objectives, research questions and outcomes focus on Science, Policy and Practice. The emphasis will be on transformative social learning driving transdisciplinary sustainable development actions related to clean water, climate action, ecological infrastructure and related concerns (food security, biodiversity and sustainable communities) for learning and education system innovation.

AIMS:

1. PRACTICE: To strengthen co-engaged transdisciplinary sustainable development action via transformative social learning methods and approaches.
2. POLICY: To contribute to sustainable development policy engagement, as well as formal and informal education, skills, and social learning system development.
3. SCIENCE: To contribute to transdisciplinary sustainability science, and educational and learning science theory, methodology and practice.
   
   
   

OBJECTIVES:

1. PRACTICE:
   a) To systematically review if, and how co-engaged transdisciplinary sustainable development action processes and outcomes emerge via transformative social learning methods.
   b) To co-develop, expand and reflexively evaluate transdisciplinary sustainable development actions using contextually situated transformative social learning methods.
   c) To document and share (via open source platform and other methods) transformative social learning methods and approaches that can help to drive sustainable development actions.
   
   
2. POLICY
   a) To develop policy guidelines to inform formal and informal education, skills, and social learning system development for sustainable development.
   b) To develop policy guidelines that support transdisciplinary sustainable development actions via multi-stakeholder social learning.
   
   
3. SCIENCE
   a) To contribute and share via an open source platform principles, theories, methods and approaches that strengthen transdisciplinary Sustainability Science methodology and practice.
   b) To contribute and share via an open source platform principles, theories, methods and approaches that strengthen sustainability oriented educational and learning science methodology and practice.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

1. PRACTICE
   a) How does or can transformative social learning drive sustainable development actions (or not)?
   b) What resources (knowledge, material, social, cultural, ecological) and methods are mobilised and needed for transformative social learning processes that can drive sustainable development actions?
   c) What outcomes emerge (or not) (e.g. transformative agency, actions, changes at different levels)?
   d) How are the transformative social learning processes and outcomes influenced and shaped by context (e.g. rural / urban), around interest (e.g. youth groups) and matters of concern (e.g. clean water, climate change crisis etc.)
   e) What monitoring and evaluation approaches can strengthen the relationship between transformative social learning and sustainable development actions?
   
   
2. POLICY
   a) What policy frameworks exist for supporting citizen participation in sustainable development actions? What gaps exist in these frameworks, and how do they envisage social learning and citizen engagement? What gaps exist?
   b) How can evidence of transformative social learning driving sustainable development actions be mobilised into policy processes in the sustainable development, science and education and skills development spheres, at different policy levels (e.g. campus, local and national government levels)?
   c) What guidelines are needed for policy development so that transformative social learning is embedded in sustainable development and education and skills system policy?
   
   
3. SCIENCE
   a) What principles, theories and methodologies can guide transformative social learning and sustainable development action and research in the Sustainability Sciences, and the Education and Learning Sciences?
   b) How do these approaches advance scientific knowledge production, uptake and use for sustainable development.

OUTCOMES:

The ambition expressed in the South African National Development Plan (NDP, 2012), the African Union 2063 Agenda, and the UN 2030 Agenda underscores the urgency for societies to transform towards a more livable, just and ecologically sustainable future. In such a context, transformation is not a buzz word. It is defining the era and way in which we live.
Accordingly, and aligned with this CoP’s intention, Outcome 10 of the Medium Term Strategic Term (MTSF) (DPME, 2014) indicates that in the period 2019-2024, the emphasis of government is on “the implementation of sustainable development programmes” to secure an “environmentally sustainable, climate change resilient, low-carbon economy and just society” (MTSF, Outcome 10, pg. 1). To do this, there is need to build human capacity and green skills learning pathways for these sub-outcomes:

• Sub Outcome 1: Ecosystems are sustained and natural resources are used efficiently.
• Sub Outcome 2: Effective climate change and mitigation response.
• Sub Outcome 3: An environmentally sustainable, low carbon economy resulting from a well-managed just transition.
• Sub Outcome 4: Enhanced governance and capacity.
• Sub Outcome 5: Sustainable human communities.
  
  

Showing the need for collaborative approaches, the COP responds to the following intersecting problems: 

1. Inadequate knowledge flow and uptake in the Sciences where valuable knowledge for sustainable development is being produced, but not used, and publics are not engaged in science praxis.
2. Inadequate understanding of transformative social learning and the slow pace of mobilizing learning potential, and education system innovations for sustainable development (IPCC, 2014; UNESCO, 2016).
3. Inadequate curriculum and learning theory, and cultural and social analyses in informing educational and social-ecological system transformations (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2017), leading to a problem of absences, exclusion and / or fragmentation of learning progression in green skills learning pathways.
4. Lack of appropriate methodologies and research capacity to anticipate skills demand and learning needs for green work and sustainability and just transitions (DEA, 2010; Rosenberg et al., 2017; Ramsarup et al. 2018)
5. Limited engagement between the different policy sectors, even though policy alignment is a critical requirement for inclusive sustainable development (DEA, 2010, 2018; ILO, 2010, Rosenberg et al., 2015).
6. The problem of a lack of appropriate research forums for bringing the Sustainability Sciences and the Education and Learning Sciences closer together with the policy sector to address these gaps.

Last Modified: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:57:56 SAST

This COP pro-actively brings together 5 Education and Social Science Chairs and Senior Professors (Lotz-Sisitka, Rosenberg, Le Grange, Swilling, Moyo) with 9 Sustainability Science Chairs and Senior Professors (Hill, Limson, Luus-Powell, Scholes, Shackleton, New, Vogel, Palmer, and Odume) from 6 universities amongst which 5 are SARChI Chairs and 5 Distinguished Professors. All have extensive national and international research experience in the Sustainability Sciences, with disciplinary backgrounds including education, psychology, sociology, economics, public management, aquatic sciences, entomology, biotechnology, geography, environmental science, botany with strong applications to water, biodiversity and climate sciences making up a strong inter-disciplinary platform for developing transdisciplinary scientific practice. 

Within these there are nuanced multi-disciplinary contributions and specialisms which include: Philosophy, Curriculum Studies, Post-colonial Studies, Transition Studies, Evaluation, Rural Development, Biological Control, Biotechnology Innovation, Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction, Invasive Biology, Political Economy, Green Economy, EcoToxiocology and more. The education Chairs have expertise in working across the education sector including community, adult, primary, further, vocational and higher education and training. All CoP members have high levels of expertise in engaging and leading inter- and transdisciplinary research processes and programmes, and indeed are national and international leaders in this area of scientific research. 

The COP links leading research centres who are all actively developing Transdisciplinary Sustainability Sciences, namely the Wits Global Change Institute (GCI), the UCT Africa Climate and Development Institute (ACDI), the RU Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC), Institute of Water Research (IWR), Centre for Biological Control (CBC) and Biotechnology Innovation Centre (RUBIC), the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Fort Hare Social and Economic Research Institute (FHISER), the US Complexity Studies in Transition (CST) Centre and the Centre of Excellence in Invasive Biology (C.I.B). The SARChI Chair in Ecosystem Health at 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Limpopo links to the UL Rural Development and Innovation Hub.  

The CoP also links to important African Research Partnership Networks, with two of the Senior Professors (Shackleton and Palmer) leading two ARUA Centres of Excellence research programmes, notably the IWR (ARUA Water cluster), and ACDI (ARUA Climate Change Cluster). Both the IWR and ELRC (Odumu and Lotz-Sisitka) are involved in the newly forming African Cluster Centre (ACC) at RU which is one of four ACCs linked to the German Beyreuth 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 ‘African Multiples’ Centre of Excellence in African Studies. The ELRC, who will lead this CoP, is a UNU recognized Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (since 2007) and is one of the leading Environment and Sustainability Education Centres in the world. Other centres in this CoP also have significant international reputations, scientific networks and links. Thus, the CoP brings high level expertise together with significant links to a widely networked science, policy and practice system (see impact) in South Africa, on the African continent, and more widely. 

Additionally, the CoP also develops multi-and transdisciplinary practice via:

• INTER-DISCIPLINARY PARTNERSHIPS: via a range of local, national and international partners and learning networks (see impact section) including local municipalities, NGOs and community organisations (e.g. City of Johannesburg, Association for Water and Rural Development); provincial and national institutions (e.g. DHET, DEA, DBE and DST) national Science Councils (e.g. the ARC); international organisations (e.g. Africa Future Earth Science Committee; ARUA universities).
  
  
• AN INTEGRATIVE SOCIAL LEARNING APPROACH that requires processes of co-engaged interaction, dialogue and practice involving framing, de-framing and re-framing (Wals, 2007; Lotz-Sisitka, 2012) to enable new synthesis (Bhaskar, 2010). Dussel (2008) argues that, “people need to be educated in a pedagogical system that overcomes Eurocentrism in all branches of knowledge” (pg. 119) and that engages the as yet unexplored ‘spaces between’ the disciplines.
  
  
• INTERSECTIONAL POLICY, CONTEXTUAL AND SCIENTIFIC DYNAMICS: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other wicked problems demand attention to the various intersections across spatial and temporal scales and between knowledge domains (e.g. Water, Food, Climate Change). Creation of knowledge to address such challenges is both complicated and complex (e.g. Rogers et al., 2013), and requires a new paradigm of inclusivity [see APPENDIX B]. De Sousa Santos (2014) comments that modern scientific knowledge has been created via an epistemic system that has excluded the knowledge of the majority of the world’s people, a key issue which we address in this CoP. Links between policy and practice are similarly complex, requiring new approaches (Nowotny, 2009).
  
  
• ONTOLOGICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL DYNAMICS (MULTI SITE and MULTI-VOICED): Transdisciplinarity must take adequate account of power relations, be focused on inclusion, allow for reflexivity, and recursive loops of knowledge and interactions that enable and make it possible to remake the world we live in (Jasanoff, 2014). Such a process of re-making the world involves multi-voiced, and multi-site engagement, and is emergent from existing ways of being (ontologies) which are culturally, politically, and socially diverse when addressing a challenge (Max-Neef, 2005; Bhaskar, 2010). 

Last Modified: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 10:48:55 SAST

Social Learning and Sustainable Development

Transformative Social Learning driving Transdisciplinary Sustainable Development Action and Education System Change 

In South Africa, there is an urgent need to bring science, practice, and policy closer together for advancing sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There is also an urgent need to address the mis-alignment between Sustainability Science and Education System development. In this Community of Practice (CoP) we focus on transformative social learning that supports knowledge co-development, and knowledge uptake and use for solution oriented sustainable development actions. We do this to inform education system change. We arrange our contributions and collaborations along three thematic cluster areas: 

• CLEAN WATER SUPPLY AND PROVISIONING: Water quality monitoring, bio-technology and biological control (SDG 6 & 9),
• CLIMATE ACTION: Adaptation, mitigation and resilience building (including food security and creating sustainable communities) (SDG 13, 2 & 11),
• ECOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Restoration, management and governance (SDG 14 &15).

Transdisciplinary sustainable development (TSD) actions cannot be achieved without people’s participation and education system re-orientation and change (SDG 4 & 17). Current high levels of social protest in the country, and systemic governance failures around critical concerns such as clean water, land and food security, together with the deeper and longer term crises associated with water scarcity, climate change and biodiversity loss, indicates that there is an urgent need to develop, amplify and scale approaches that can bring the public, government employees, scientists and civil society organisations and movements together in defining research needs and in co-developing sustainable development solutions and actions in ways that address peoples’ local interests and matters of concern. These must align with, but also offer innovations for policy. This requires substantive formal and informal boundary crossing SOCIAL LEARNING (SL) at all levels of the science-policy-practice system. This kind of social learning can drive sustainable development action and education and skills system transformation.

Social learning as used in this CoP proposal refers to co-learning at inter-linked levels of 1) individual cognitive change, 2) cultural values and practice change, 3) organizational, institutional and social movement change, 4) landscape and 5) systemic change (Reed et al., 2009). Additionally, TRANSFORMATIVE SOCIAL LEARNING (TSL) as used in this CoP proposal refers to critical, transformative and transgressive forms of co-learning and collective agency development that can challenge and transgress unsustainable, taken for granted norms, habits, cultural and institutional practices, systems and structures that hold unsustainability and inequality in place 
(Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2015; Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2017; Wals et al., 2018).

It is widely documented that transformative social learning is required to drive lasting sustainable development action in ways that develop and empower a critical, creative public and citizenry within a just transitions framework (Swilling & Annecke, 2012) that can 1) engage pro-actively and critically with socio-technical innovation design and uptake, 2) evaluate, and more pro-actively use scientific knowledge and ICTs for sustainable development actions, 3) find alternatives that expand options beyond social protest as the only response to critical issues (necessary as such protests may be), and 4) contribute actively to longer term social and sustainable development innovations across boundaries, disciplines, generational divides and institutions (Macintyre et al., 2018). However, not enough is known of how this type of social learning can drive sustainable development action across socio-cultural, disciplinary, generational and institutional boundaries in South Africa within a just transitions framework. Knowledge of this, where it exists, is fragmented, lacks systemic analysis, and thus also lacks wider systemic impact, especially into the education, skills and wider social learning system, where significant mis-alignment exists between contemporary Sustainability Science and Education system development. This CoP aims to address this gap via bringing Sustainability Science, and education and skills system science, policy and practice closer together. 

The work of this CoP cuts across the identified priority themes in the NRF/DST CoP call, with emphasis on the three themes above. Its shorter-term focus is to address critical transdisciplinary sustainable development issues focusing on clean water, climate action, and ecological infrastructure within a transformative, learning-centred and action oriented framework. Its longer-term focus, emergent from the shorter-term focus, is to strengthen relevance and quality of education and democracy. This includes green skills learning pathways and curriculum innovations for sustainable livelihoods and new and emerging green jobs for just transitions. 

This CoP pro-actively brings together 13 Chairs and Senior Professors: 8 from the Sustainability Sciences (9 with Dr Odume) and 5 Chairs and Senior Professors in the Education, Learning and Social Sciences, around a Knowledge HUB (see APPENDIX A DIAGRAM). All are working on transformative social learning as driver for transdisciplinary sustainable development research and action, leading to education system innovations.  With this in mind, the CoP will work towards providing 1) policy outcomes, 2) practice outcomes and 3) scientific development outcomes to advance this shared agenda.

Last Modified: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 11:19:35 SAST