Actors' roles and their distribution in transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: an exploratory study of research projects in the French LTSER network

Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science (TRSS) inherently involves a diversity of research actors and societal actors performing a variety of roles, but it is often unclear which actors perform which roles. This paper contributes to filling this knowledge gap by examining a sample of TRSS projects selected from a French research infrastructure with a strong sustainability science orientation. For each project, we analysed the types of actors involved, the number and types of roles they performed at the time of the study, and how the different roles were distributed among them. We found that different types of societal actors were involved in TRSS projects to very different degrees. Citizens were the least represented and tended to play far fewer roles than the other types of societal actors, which seems to be a major weakness of TRSS projects. We also found that the number of roles played by research and societal actors tended to increase with the diversity of societal actors involved, suggesting a multiplier effect of involving societal actors in TRSS. We conclude the paper by highlighting its limitations and perspectives, discussing our findings and drawing out their operational implications.