AL2115 Transdisciplinary Approaches for System Innovations

Admitted to Master's Programme, Sustainable Technology (TSUTM).

Others: Admitted to a program at KTH - Royal Institute of Technology and at least completed 180 ECTS credits. Courses from upper secondary school corresponding to the courses Eng B/6 according to the Swedish upper secondary school system.

The course “Transdisciplinary Approaches for System Innovations” will provide you with insights on socio-technical processes in system innovations and equip you with participatory methods to facilitate sustainability transitions of socio-technical systems.

During the course you will design and implement a participatory backcasting project addressing a real-life complex socio-technical challenge. In  the previous year addressed tarnsitions challenges were

• 2017: “Sustainable KTH Campus 2050”
• 2018: “Sustainable city district Hammarby Sjöstad 2050”
• 2019: "Sustainable urban food production and consumption system in Stockholm by 2050"
• 2020: Mobility system in climate-positive Järfälla municipality by 2050."

The course is divided into 3 themes:

Theme 1. System innovations

Theme 2. Transdisciplinarity

Theme 3. Participatory backcasting (project work in interaction with different societal actors)

After finishing the course, the student should be able to:

• describe the different types of innovations and reflect on how they relate to various theories of socio-technical changes, e.g. the multi-level perspective of system innovation and transition management;

• describe concepts of complexity and uncertainty in/for socio-technical systems;

• describe core ideas of different schools in future studies;

• reflect on transdisciplinary approaches for system innovation studies, e.g. generation of robust knowledge, consensus building, needs orientation, research society interaction;

• explain and illustrate scenario typologies;

• use various methods and techniques for scenario development, e.g. driver analysis, storytelling, morphological analysis;

• design a transdisciplinary study for sustainable transitions of socio-technical systems;

• implement a participatory backcasting process addressing real-life complex socio-technical challenges.