Academic Research and Transition

There is a growing number of acadmics and researchers (faculty and students) covering both PhD and MSc levels, engaging with Transition Initiatives and Transition Network. Initially, their work was typically around community involvement in sustainability. Latterly, we're seeing more niche type research into, for example, economic areas such as local complementary currencies.

In response to the growth in interest, we set up a small conference in Bristol to examine how a cooperative relationship between all elements might develop.

The wider context

There are 3 key aspects to Transition and Higher Education:

  1. Universities OF Transition - places to learn all the technical and general skills around transition.
    • likely to be virtual "universities" initially. This means it's a list of available courses covering all the necessary elements (delivered by institutions such as CAT, Schumacher, Amazonails, Non-violent communications etc
    • over time, some educational establishments will redesign their curricula to offer a very wide range of courses covering all aspects of transition
    • probably the closest to a "transition university" right now is Cultivate in Ireland (www.cultivate.ie). They're already working with most of the Irish transition initiatives.
  2. Universities IN Transition - places that are adopting the transition model to rebuild resilience and reduce carbon institutionally
    • there are a number of universities thinking this way, and I consider it very likely that a network will emerge during 2008
    • a Transition University addresses 6 big problems, and is therefore an extremely compelling proposition:
      1. how do you transition/relocalise a transient population?
      2. how do you find the labour to transition a huge institution like a university?
      3. how do you give students of (eg international finance) something useful to learn?
      4. how can you seed local populations with people who are familiar with the transition principles and can help kick off initiatives in those places?
      5. how can you give meaningful work to students so they can be paid to offset their debts to the university?
      6. how are universities going to attract students to courses during a period of great uncertainty when it won't be clear how many academic subjects will be relevant in a severely energy constrained society?
  3. Transition Research - creating a coordinated range of academic and action-based research projects that:
    • are of use to the Transition Network as a whole
    • are useful to the communities that participate in the research
    • fulfil the academic research criteria to release funding for the work

Research Protocol - working with Transition Initiatives (draft)

  • Before engaging with a specific initiative, do the following research:
    1. read the transition initiatives primer
    2. check over the website for the initiative - you can jump to it from here
    3. review the education and universities forum and research forum to check what academic activity may already be occurring at your target initiative(s)
  • add a note to the forum regarding your own intentions
  • draft up a proposal for your research to submit to the initiative that clearly establishes:
    1. the amount of effort that the initiative will be expected to provide, and when
    2. the benefits they'll get from your research
    3. the benefits that the wider transition network will gain
    4. when your work will be completed
    5. when you send it to your contact at the initiative, please cc research[AT]transitionnetwork[DOT]org
  • update the forum when you know when the work will commence

Further reading

Additional information and suggestions are available from the Transition Town Totnes website.