Building actor-centric transformative capacity through city-university partnerships - Ambio
- ️Forrest, Nigel
- ️Sat Nov 17 2018
Abstract
Cities worldwide are rising to the challenge of sustainable development, calling for large-scale and fast-paced transformations towards sustainability. Urban sustainability challenges are now being reframed as a lack of capacity of individuals and organizations to carry out such socio-technical transformations. This article expands on transformative capacity literature by elucidating the concept of actor-centric transformative capacity. It focuses on the unique role city-university partnerships (CUPs) can play in catalyzing and supporting effective urban sustainability transformations. Two case studies on CUPs in Portland, Oregon and Tempe, Arizona are used to identify determinants of actor-centric transformative capacity, their role in the transformative capacity of urban systems, and how they are built through CUPs. The article concludes with strategies for building effective CUPs capable of building actor-centric transformative capacity among university actors and city administrators.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the guest editors Marc Wolfram, Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea, Megan Farrelly, Monash University, Australia, and Sara Borgström, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, for the invitation and encouragement to pursue this manuscript. The authors acknowledge funding from the Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes (GCSO) during the grant period February 2017–January 2018. We would also like to thank our city collaborators in Portland, Karlsruhe, Tempe, and Mexico City for the productive collaborations through this project.
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Authors and Affiliations
School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Lauren Withycombe Keeler
Center for Global Sustainability and Cultural Transformation, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany
Lauren Withycombe Keeler, Arnim Wiek, Daniel J. Lang & Nigel Forrest
Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
Fletcher Beaudoin
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Lauren Withycombe Keeler, Arnim Wiek, Daniel J. Lang & Nigel Forrest
Institute for Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany
Beatrice John, Daniel J. Lang & Nigel Forrest
Laboratoria Nacional de Ciencias de la Sostenibilidad, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México City, Mexico
Amy M. Lerner
Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Richard Beecroft, Kaidi Tamm & Andreas Seebacher
Office of Sustainability, City of Tempe, Tempe, AZ, USA
Braden Kay
School of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
Arnim Wiek & Nigel Forrest
Authors
- Lauren Withycombe Keeler
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- Fletcher Beaudoin
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- Arnim Wiek
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- Beatrice John
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- Amy M. Lerner
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- Richard Beecroft
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- Kaidi Tamm
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- Andreas Seebacher
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- Daniel J. Lang
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- Braden Kay
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- Nigel Forrest
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Correspondence to Arnim Wiek.
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Keeler, L.W., Beaudoin, F., Wiek, A. et al. Building actor-centric transformative capacity through city-university partnerships. Ambio 48, 529–538 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1117-9
Received: 02 March 2018
Revised: 24 August 2018
Accepted: 25 October 2018
Published: 17 November 2018
Issue Date: 15 May 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1117-9