Calls

01.04.25

Call for contributions: “Role of transdisciplinarity as a scientific and cultural approach in the prevention of global conflicts of modern civilization”

ITT, CIRET

The reception of written answers to the questions of the symposium “The role of transdisciplinarity as a scientific and cultural approach in preventing global conflicts of modern civilization" is open. The symposium will be held in the period from 01 February to 01 April 2025. The organizers of the symposium are the Institute of Transdisciplinary Technologies (Russia) (http://www.td-science.ru) and the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET, France) (http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org) .

What it is about?

The main objectives of the symposium are:
a) To determine the readiness of modern transdisciplinarity to participate in rethinking and solving the problems of sustainable development of society;
b) To determine the scientific and cultural potential of modern transdisciplinarity for the prevention of global conflicts, as one of the conditions for the formation of sustainable development of society.

The deadline for sending pdf files as finished materials is from 01 February to 01 April 2025

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20.04.2025

Call for Contributions: Transformative change for a just and sustainable future

National Sustainability Society

Balancing social, economic, and environmentally sustainable practices requires revolutionary action. While climate change, biodiversity loss, socio-political polarization, pollution, public health, and other related issues remain vital concerns, no outcomes are predetermined. Through individual initiatives and collaborative efforts in the near and distant future, humanity is still capable of both mitigating or even reversing adverse trends.

A just and sustainable future is within our power.

The second Annual National Sustainability Society conference welcomes those in academia, industry, nonprofits, and governments to come together and share contributions that focus on transformative change for a just and sustainable future.  We especially encourage submissions from emerging scholars and early career professionals.

Submission Deadline: 20 April 2025
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30.04.25

Engaged UniBE – Transdisciplinary Projects for Sustainable Development

University of Bern

The Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development of the University of Bern is launching a call for projects that are in line with the Climate Roadmap 2030. The University is looking for innovative projects that use transdisciplinary methods to promote climate protection and involve social actors in the Bern region in novel and effective ways.

Eligible projects include, among others:

• Social innovations for sustainability transformations

•  Research-based implementation projects for greenhouse gas reduction

• Climate impact projects, climate impact adaptation projects

• Living labs or real-world experiments

• Capacity development for young scientists

• Development and implementation of transdisciplinary teaching formats

• Innovative formats for dialog with politics and civil society

• etc.

Projects with a duration of at least one and a maximum of three years are eligible for funding. The maximum funding amount per project and year is CHF 100'000.

Submission Deadline for project ideas: 30 April 2025
Deadline fpr submission of final project proposals: 15 June 2025

30.04.25

Call for manuscripts: Special issue of Sustainability: Explore Sustainable Development in Multiple Dimensions for Human Well-Being

sustainability

Research on the intersection between well-being and sustainable development is gaining more attention in light of increasing global challenges and the pressure to achieve global commitments for sustainability. Environmental psychology, which explores the relationship between humans and the external world, in the last decade, has been more sustainability- and policy-oriented, encompassing sustainability at larger levels of analysis and life domains beyond resource management, as well as in an interdisciplinary context.

Expanding environmental psychology to embrace multiple dimensions of sustainable development can be important for understanding the tensions that arise between needed action and challenging behavior changes. These can be seen as requirements that reduce subjective well-being, as ecosystem degradation does not have an immediate effect on well-being, and because critical sustainability transformations will trigger individual and collective action.

In this regard, this Special Issue is focused on exploring the intricate connection of multiple dimensions of sustainable development and human well-being. Global priorities have shifted toward well-being and sustainable development, which are both priorities in global agendas but are somehow pursued in separate directions.

This collection of works aims to advance research in this field and contribute to synergizing sustainability and well-being research agendas. The aim is to do so by showcasing articles from various disciplines, including environmental psychology in an interdisciplinary context, that challenge concepts of sustainability even beyond the triangular framing, considering a broad definition of well-being that is not only limited to a state of existence that fulfills various human needs (having, loving, being, and doing). In this way, we can embrace the idea that human well-being is inseparable from the nature and vitality of ecosystems.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2025

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07.05.25

NRP 84 “Plant Breeding Innovation”: second call for proposals now open

NRP 84 - Plant Breeding Innovation

Researchers are invited to submit applications to a second call for projects to be conducted within the National Research Programme “Plant Breeding Innovation” (NRP 84). This call is aimed at researchers in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), in fields including – but not restricted to – the applied ethics of innovation, social sciences, science education, anthropology, history, communication and media, economics and law.

NRP 84 will explore the capacity and social implications of new plant breeding technologies (NBT) to address food security challenges in Switzerland, with particular emphasis on their economic viability, ethical and social acceptability as well as ecological sustainability. The NRP is structured into three modules: Technical feasibility of NBT (Module 1); Ethics, society and economics (Module 2) and Regulatory considerations (Module 3). The first call successfully attracted projects exploring the technical feasibility of NBT and facilitated multidisciplinary collaboration. However, the Steering Committee has identified relevant gaps regarding the topics addressed in Modules 2 and 3 and has therefore decided to use the remaining funds to support additional projects in these modules.

Proposal-Submission Deadline: 7 May 2025

25.05.2025

Three Calls on food, mobility and sharing

Future Urban Society

Future Urban Society is looking for the best approaches, ideas and proposed solutions from all over Switzerland for our three challenges.

The edible city
The edible city — How we get back to our taste. How can we promote our own health and that of the planet by growing and enjoying local food?

City of short distances
City of short distances — spatial development for a better quality of life. How could we contribute to a high quality of life in Swiss cities and agglomerations through short distances?

Sharing Sharing Sharing
Sharing as a social innovation. How does sharing things become a matter of course in everyday urban life?

Application Deadline: 25 May 2025

31.05.25

Sustainability and Co-creation, Learning Interactions between Education and Business Sectors

Discover Sustainability

Collection Information and Aims:

Corporate sustainability learning can take many forms and occurs in different sectors and domains of society. The increasing legal and social demands for sustainability in the business sector, also requires now forms of learning, including co-creation with externals and in an inter-sectoral context, especially in the light of the emerging global crises and their resulting impact of a changing and vulnerable environment for the business world. Considered as an instrument for solving complex problems in creative settings, because it leverages a wide range of resources experiences and ideas otherwise unexplored, co-creation can be integrated more in actions towards sustainability.

This topical collection aims to contribute to the under-researched field of interrelation of “Co-creation” and “Sustainability”.

The collection will explore the intersection between the concepts of “Co-creation” and “Sustainability and give practical guidance, by focusing mainly on interdisciplinary research, methodological contributions and theoretical frameworks, advanced empirical research, case studies and experimental initiatives, that highlight innovation in the field, emerging new forms and practices, within science-business co-creation for sustainability. The collection will emphasise the 17SDGs, not as a learning framework bur as a useful guideline in re-designing existing learning processes, in order to adjust or specify existing learning components, guarantee substantial performance and encourage new forms of inter-organizational learning. By exploring these interrelations, the collection contributes to the research community and to the organizations in enhancing their understanding of a common learning space for knowledge transfer and co-creation, as a common instrument for synergized actions and thus revealing the hidden potential for sustainability.

Submission Deadline: 31 May 2025

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15.06.25

Engaged UniBE – Transdisciplinary Projects for Sustainable Development

University of Bern

The Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development of the University of Bern is launching a call for projects that are in line with the Climate Roadmap 2030. The University is looking for innovative projects that use transdisciplinary methods to promote climate protection and involve social actors in the Bern region in novel and effective ways.

Eligible projects include, among others:

• Social innovations for sustainability transformations

•  Research-based implementation projects for greenhouse gas reduction

• Climate impact projects, climate impact adaptation projects

• Living labs or real-world experiments

• Capacity development for young scientists

• Development and implementation of transdisciplinary teaching formats

• Innovative formats for dialog with politics and civil society

• etc.

Projects with a duration of at least one and a maximum of three years are eligible for funding. The maximum funding amount per project and year is CHF 100'000.

Submission deadline for project ideas: April 30, 2025 (binding commitment is subject to implementation of the evaluation panel's recommendations by 15 June)

Deadline for submission of final project proposals: June 15, 2025

To participate, projects must involve both a social and a university stakeholder from the University of Bern.

15.06.25

Call for papers: Collaborative Research for Sustainable Mountain Futures -Special Issue from the International Mountain Conference 2025

Centre for Development and Environment, University of Bern

The editorial team of Mountain Research and Development and the organizers of IMC2025 aim to produce a special issue of MRD featuring the most interesting, innovative, or thought-provoking contributions to the conference. We invite papers emerging from recent research collaborations across different disciplines, experiences, and geographic and cultural perspectives. Papers may present systematic evaluations of development interventions, local practices, or policy efforts, or insights from practice-oriented research; empirical research or meta-analyses focusing on change dynamics and their impacts; or agendas for future policies, interventions, or research based on literature reviews or systematic stakeholder processes.

Notices of intent are due by 15 June 2025,
full papers by 15 October 2025.

Read the detailed call for papers
About the journal’s section policies, guidelines, and submission procedure

01.08.2025

Call for Papers: diskrus Ausgabe 10: Forschung mit Wirkung? Von Transdisziplinarität bis Citizen Science im gesellschaftlichen Kontext

diskurs Zeischrift

Klimawandel, soziale Ungerechtigkeit, Digitalisierung und politische Polarisierung – in einer Zeit tiefgreifender gesellschaftlicher Umbrüche und globaler Herausforderungen wächst die Bedeutung einer Forschung, die nicht nur technologische, soziale und ökologische Probleme einer Gesellschaft bespricht, sondern diese Gesellschaft auch aktiv in einen Lösungs- und Forschungsprozess einbezieht (dazu beispielsweise Hochschulrektorenkonferenz 2018). So zielen Forschungskonzepte wie Reallabore, Science Diplomacy oder Citizen Science auf eine Integration außerwissenschaftlicher Akteur:innen, während „Lai:innen“ in beteiligenden Forschungsdesigns zu Ko-Forschenden werden (sollen). Derweil ergänzen deutsche Hochschulen seit den 2000er-Jahren ihre Aufgaben der Forschung und Lehre um eine dritte, eine Third Mission: den Transfer wissenschaftlichen Wissens zur und die Kommunikation mit der Gesellschaft, um besagte Herausforderungen anzugehen, Ressourcen zu bündeln und um – besonders im Fall ‚drittmittelrelevanter‘ Forschung – Finanzierungen zu sichern.

Die kommende Ausgabe von diskurs widmet sich diesen zentralen Fragen und lädt Beiträge ein, die sich theoretisch und/oder empirisch mit folgenden Themenbereichen auseinandersetzen:

1. Das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft

2. Methoden und Standards der partizipativen Forschung

3. Technologische Innovationen als Brücke zwischen Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft

4. Die Politizität wissenschaftlicher Forschung

Einreichefrist: 01. August 2025
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