Sustainability |
The goal
or end-point of a process known as ‘ecologically sustainable
and socially just development’, or just ‘sustainable
development’
|
| Sustainable
development |
Brundtland
report (1987): “Development that meets the needs of the
present, without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs.”
Diesendorf (2000):
“Types of economic and social development that protect
and enhance the environment and social equity.”
|
| Disciplinary
research |
Coherent,
logically consistent, certified body of knowledge
|
| Multi-disciplinary
research |
Draws
on more than one discipline, without interactions between them:
e.g. most approaches to environmental law or environmental engineering
or environmental economics
|
| Inter-disciplinary
research |
•
Multi-disciplinary with interactions.
• Problem-oriented to a significant degree.
• Usually conducted by a team with different disciplinary
backgrounds who try to understand the parts of their colleagues’
disciplines that are relevant to the problem at hand.
|
| Trans-disciplinary
research |
Interactive
problem-oriented and solution oriented approach that transcends
disciplines: e.g.
• futures studies;
• social ecology;
• those parts of ecological economics that discard basic
assumptions of neo-classical economics: e.g. that markets are
relevant to the problem, or that humans behave simply producers
and consumers, and not as citizens.
|
| Research |
Venture
into the unknown (in the context of intellectual endeavour)
|
| Research
on |
Research
that
• distinguishes between subject and object of research;
• uses explicitly or implicitly a natural science model;
• uses either a reductionist or a systems approach.
|
| Research
with |
Participatory
research processes applied to organisations and groups. e.g.
action research.
|
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