The global crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the failings of traditional approaches to sustainable development and the critical need to “build back better/greener”. As the process of recovery slowly begins, new questions are emerging around whether a return to the status quo of unsustainable social, economic and environmental conditions is desirable, or whether countries should advance towards a more sustainable future.

The United Nations recently proposed that the current crisis could open up a window of opportunity for transformative change towards sustainable development pathways. However, this opportunity can only be seized if we close important knowledge gaps around research and practice related to the sustainability of human-environment interactions. For instance, designing a more sustainable society will require tackling longstanding and ingrained urban challenges while simultaneously addressing the root causes of unsustainable environmental practices and how they are intertwined with existing socio-economic inequalities and inequitable health outcomes.

A number of recent academic and research policy initiatives have emphasised the need for transdisciplinary approaches to sustainability research.

Transdisciplinary research has two main defining characteristics:

• It should involve a genuine collaboration between two or more academic fields and enable a synthesis that does not only result from articulating closely related disciplines, but crosses the boundaries between research in the humanities/social sciences and the natural sciences/engineering/mathematics.
• Research should go beyond the academic arena to be challenge-led, embedding the perspectives of non-academic stakeholders with an orientation towards transformative real-world impact.

There are important theoretical and methodological gaps that need to be filled in regard to the complexity of human-environment interactions and their relationship to context-specific issues. For instance, how can we combine knowledge on natural hazards and socio­economic vulnerabilities with the need to do research that effectively supports transformative change in governance? How can we use novel methodologies in data analytics to reveal existing health inequities in different urban settings and simultaneously empower local governments and communities to effect change? Answers to such questions require new theories and methods to bridge existing siloed disciplines and the perspectives of non­-academic practitioners. They also require the ability to design innovative research projects to tackle specific challenges, going beyond traditional divisions between quantitative/qualitative, conceptual/applied methodological traditions.

TRANSFORM will fill these theoretical and methodological gaps by delivering an innovative training programme that equips the next generation of researchers with the ability to integrate methods and perspectives from different academic and practice fields into transformative, transdisciplinary research designs with an integrated approach to human-environment interactions. This will be accomplished by enabling postgraduate research students to work on transdisciplinary projects that address a real-world sustainability challenge defined together with an external practice partner, under the supervision of at least two academics from different disciplines relevant to the challenge.

The programme participants will benefit from and expand the transdisciplinary networks of the Global Sustainable Development community at Warwick. Students will have a supervisory team composed of a mentor from a practice organisation (e.g. UN-Habitat, Médecins Sans Frontières, British Geological Survey, Environment Agency, Met Office, African Population and Health Research Centre, International Livestock Research Institute, Center for International Forestry Research, International Institute for Environment and Development), as well as two academic supervisors from different disciplines across the social sciences/humanities and the sciences, broadly understood to encompass natural sciences, engineering and medicine.

In future, researchers who are skilled in challenge-led, transdisciplinary methods will play an important role in developing innovative solutions to sustainable development challenges that bridge academic and non-academic perspectives. On the programme, students will develop capacity in methodologies that will allow them to combine contextual, place-based understanding of the required sustainability transformations with the development of new transdisciplinary research methods and we expect that the outcome will be more impactful research that will contribute towards transformative change.

• Six doctoral scholarships available in each year in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Each scholarship covers maintenance costs at the appropriate UKRI domestic rate* and home tuition fees, and research and training expenses for the doctoral student over four years.
• A four-year PhD programme focused on training students to have competence in a subject area that spans at least two disciplinary perspectives.
• Our cohorts will be trained in transdisciplinary methods, enabling researchers to draw on skills from multiple disciplines and work effectively and equitably with non-academic partners to deliver impactful sustainable development research.
• Students will be recruited into a new PhD in Global Sustainable Development hosted in the School for Cross-faculty StudiesLink opens in a new window. This cohort of students will also be embedded within a larger network of PGR students working on sustainability from across Warwick’s departments, other postgraduate programmes, doctoral training centres, and interdisciplinary research centres. Full course details for the PhD in Global Sustainable Development can be accessed here.Link opens in a new window
• Recognising that students will come from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds, in Year One they will all be required to follow a 20CATS module from the MASc in Global Sustainable Development, with the intention of ensuring that the cohort is equipped with the core skills and knowledge required to undertake PhD research.
• PhD students will have the opportunity to participate in masterclasses led by international experts, delivered either as intensive block workshops or as a virtual online module. These masterclasses will be open to TRANSFORM PhD students (with priority), and remaining places will be offered to other students. Masterclasses will provide training on human-environment interactions from different methodological and theoretical viewpoints broadening the students research approach. For instance, they can address methods such as: geospatial data analysis; impactful research with a theory of change; and participatory and community-based research. Furthermore, masterclasses will provide an opportunity for acquiring theoretical and conceptual foundations on substantive topics such as sustainable urbanisation, digital development, energy decarbonisation and sustainable industrial development. Speakers will consist of faculty at Warwick and other leading universities along with experts from our network of renowned international partner institutions such as UN-Habitat. In addition to the core module and masterclasses, students will collaborate with supervisors to establish individual personal development plans for the first year of the programme. These tailored training needs plans may require taking other postgraduate modules across Warwick departments and faculties to develop the specific methodological and substantive skills required for their particular projects.

*Awards increase every year, typically with inflation. The current UKRI stipend for 2022 to 2023 is £17,668 per year for your living costs.

In addition to this formal training framework, TRANSFORM will provide the following development components, with the aim of enriching the academic experience of the cohort by offering significant opportunities to engage with peers and experts from a variety of sustainable development fields. This will include:

• A vibrant and well-supported Early Career Researcher (ECR) Network for Global Sustainable Development
• Monthly seminars, consisting of internal speakers on related research projects of the Warwick community, as well as external experts at the forefront of sustainable development research and practice.
• Weekly informal gatherings of faculty and students devoted to the topic of enriching the atmosphere of transdisciplinary sustainable development research at Warwick.
• An annual research symposium in the format of a small cross-disciplinary symposium on Global Sustainable Development.
• Access to Warwick's strategic partners in Australia, North America and across Europe. Student resources for participating in, and presenting research at, appropriate external conferences and events.

The initial pool of supervisors for TRANSFORM draws from Warwick's active Global Sustainable Development research community and spans all three faculties at Warwick: Arts, Social Science and Science, Engineering and Medicine. The initial pool of practitioner mentors will come from the organisations that are already collaborating with our academics as transdisciplinary research partners. The programme will be organised in three initial thematic clusters:

Climate resilience and socio-environmental justice

This cluster draws on Warwick's expertise in areas such as complex systems modelling, geographic information and critical research on environmental justice, enabling students to investigate transformations of human-environment interactions towards resilience to climate change and environmental risks.

More information about the theme and supervisors.

Sustainable urbanisation, health and wellbeing

This cluster concentrates on research for transforming urban human-environment interactions, investigating the interlinkages between the built environment, human behaviour and health and wellbeing outcomes.

More information about the theme and supervisors.

Sustainable economies and the food-water-energy nexus

This cluster draws on Warwick's research excellence in sustainable materials, critical data studies, business strategy and food supply systems, in order to enable students to study transformations to the food-water-energy nexus towards sustainable economic and financial relationships.

More information about the theme and supervisors.