Abstract Non-technical summary Transdisciplinary sustainability scientists work with many different actors in pursuit of change. In so doing they make choices about why and how to engage with different perspectives in their research. Reflexivity – active individual and collective critical reflection – is considered an important capacity for researchers to address the resulting ethical and practical challenges. We developed a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach, which helps make any decisions that influence which perspectives are included or excluded in research explicit. We suggest that transdisciplinary sustainability research can become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity. Technical summary Transdisciplinary sustainability science is increasingly applied to study transformative change. Yet, transdisciplinary research involves diverse actors who hold contrasting and sometimes conflicting perspectives and worldviews. Reflexivity is cited as a crucial capacity for navigating the resulting challenges, yet notions of reflexivity are often focused on individual researcher reflections that lack explicit links to the collective transdisciplinary research process and predominant modes of inquiry in the field. This gap presents the risk that reflexivity remains on the periphery of sustainability science and becomes ‘unreflexive’, as crucial dimensions are left unacknowledged. Our objective was to establish a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach. We developed and refined the framework through a rapid scoping review of literature on transdisciplinarity, transformation, and reflexivity, and reflection on a scenario study in the Red River Basin (US, Canada). The framework characterizes reflexivity as the capacity to nurture a dynamic, embedded, and collective process of self-scrutiny and mutual learning in service of transformative change, which manifests through interacting boundary processes – boundary delineation, interaction, and transformation. The case study reflection suggests how embedding this framework in research can expose boundary processes that block transformation and nurture more reflexive and transformative research. Social media summary Transdisciplinary sustainability research may become more transformative by nurturing reflexivity as a dynamic, embedded, and collective learning process.

This paper utilizes the Shifting the Burden Archetype (Senge/Stroh) to document a systemic pattern that is unfortunately, often unconscious to the parties involved and inadvertently leads to the undermining of corporate or government/Indigenous relationships, despite best intentions. Based on over a decade of experience in these contentious contexts, the author(s), document a set of interacting feedback loops that illustrate an unfortunate set of patterns of behaviour, based on starkly different worldviews, in which the choice to engage in more superficial attempts at relationship building actually undermines the ability of the parties to engage in the more difficult but fundamental solution of trust-based relationships. Recommendations for interventions in these typical or archetypal relationships will be made based on an understanding of the dynamics of the system and process design.

Ambiguity is often recognized as an intrinsic aspect of addressing complex sustainability challenges. Nevertheless, in the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research, ambiguity is often an ‘elephant in the room’ to be either side-stepped or reduced rather than explicitly mobilized in pursuit of solutions. These responses threaten the salience and legitimacy of sustainability science by masking the pluralism of real-world sustainability challenges and how research renders certain frames visible and invisible. Critical systems thinking (CST) emerged from the efforts of operational researchers to address theoretical and practical aspects of ambiguity. By adapting key concepts, frameworks, and lessons from CST literature and case studies, this paper aims to establish (1) an expansive conceptualization of ambiguity and (2) recommendations for operationalizing ambiguity as a valuable means of addressing sustainability challenges. We conceptualize ambiguity as an emergent feature of the simultaneous and interacting boundary processes associated with being, knowing, and intervening in complex systems , and propose Reflexive Boundary Critique (RBC) as a novel framework to help navigate these boundary processes. Our characterization of ambiguity acknowledges the boundary of a researcher’s subjective orientation and its influence on how ambiguity is exposed and mediated in research (being), characterizes knowledge as produced through the process of making boundary judgments, generating a partial, contextual, and provisional frame (knowing), and situates a researcher as part of the complexity they seek to understand, rendering any boundary process as a form of intervention that reinforces or marginalizes certain frames and, in turn, influences action (intervening). Our recommendations for sustainability scientists to operationalize ambiguity include (1) nurturing the reflexive capacities of transdisciplinary researchers to navigate persistent ambiguity (e.g., using our proposed framework of RBC), and (2) grappling with the potential for and consequences of theoretical incommensurability and discordant pluralism. Our findings can help sustainability scientists give shape to and embrace ambiguity as a fundamental part of rigorous sustainability science.

Transdisciplinary sustainability science is increasingly applied to study transformative change. Yet, transdisciplinary research involves diverse actors who hold contrasting and sometimes conflicting perspectives and worldviews. Reflexivity is cited as a crucial capacity for navigating the resulting challenges, yet notions of reflexivity are often focused on individual researcher reflections that lack explicit links to the collective transdisciplinary research process and predominant modes of inquiry in the field. This gap presents the risk that reflexivity remains on the periphery of sustainability science and becomes ‘unreflexive’, as crucial dimensions are left unacknowledged. Our objective was to establish a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science through a critical systems approach. We developed and refined the framework through a rapid scoping review of literature on transdisciplinarity, transformation, and reflexivity, and reflection on a scenario study in the Red River Basin (US, Canada). The framework characterizes reflexivity as the capacity to nurture a dynamic, embedded, and collective process of self-scrutiny and mutual learning in service of transformative change, which manifests through interacting boundary processes – boundary delineation, interaction, and transformation. The case study reflection suggests how embedding this framework in research can expose boundary processes that block transformation and nurture more reflexive and transformative research.

Transdisciplinary (TD) sustainability science is increasingly applied to study transformative change. While only certain domains of the field explicitly adopt a transformative agenda, from a complexity worldview all researchers are part of, and thus intervening in, the transformations they seek to understand. Reflexivity is cited as a crucial capacity for navigating ‘research as intervention’. Yet, there is little attention to what reflexivity looks like and how it might be facilitated in service of transformation. Our objective was to establish a framework for reflexivity as a transformative capacity in sustainability science. We developed the framework through a rapid scoping review of literature on transdisciplinarity, transformation, and reflexivity (underpinned by critical systems theory), and refined the framework through reflection on a scenario study in the Red River Basin (US, Canada). The framework characterizes reflexivity as a dynamic, embedded, and shared learning process that manifests through interacting boundary processes (i.e., sources of selectivity): boundary delineation, interaction, and transformation. These processes can be facilitated in service of transformation, for example by decentring dominant boundaries to create open epistemic spaces. The case study reflection suggests how embedding this framework in research can expose boundary processes that block transformation and nurture more reflexive and transformative research.

Community-based monitoring (CBM) activities are becoming increasingly prevalent in response to multiple factors, including reduced governmental capacity and increased public interest in environmental management. This research aims to explore how CBM has evolved in the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM), southern Ontario, including an examination of strengths and challenges. Interviews with CBM stakeholders, provincial government staff, and conservation authority staff were combined with document analysis to explore the evolution and outcomes of ORM CBM activities. Results indicate that there is active CBM on the ORM and conservation authorities play a role in the shaping of CBM activities, although significant barriers remain to civil society participation in water governance. The case study results from the ORM were also considered in light of research emerging from the Nova Scotia experience of numerous civil society organisations involved in CBM.

After tracing the antecedents of the concept and considering its intersection in social innovation research, we put forward the argument that the Anthropocene concept points to three areas of thought that are strategically imperative and must be accelerated if social innovation theory and practice is to prove transformative and respond to the challenges associated with the Anthropocene. First, we contend that the current debate on social innovation for sustainability lacks a deeper focus on human-environmental interactions and the related feedbacks, which will be necessary to understand and achieve large-scale change and transformations to global sustainability. Many innovations focus on only the social or the ecological, and we believe a more integrated approach will be needed moving forward. Second, social innovation research must confront the path-dependencies embedded within systems, and we propose that the act of "bricolage," which recombines existing elements in novel ways, will be essential, rather than single variable solutions, which currently dominate social innovation discussions. Finally, we put forward the idea that confronting the cross-scalar nature of the Anthropocene requires revisiting both the scope and temporal nature of social innovations that are most typically focused upon by scholars and funders alike. We believe the concept of the Anthropocene creates new opportunities for social innovation scholars to imagine new possibilities.

Government agenda setting has been a focus of research in the field of policy sciences for over two decades. The concept of a policy window is explored as a driver of governmental agenda setting. The Regional Municipality of York, Ontario, Canada was chosen as a case study for exploring the application of strategic environmental assessment at the municipal level through a policy window lens. Problem, policy and political streams converged to provide the necessary conditions for improved environmental assessment and infrastructure planning in York Region. A focusing event and the resulting crisis motivated stakeholders to identify and act on the problem. An SEA-type approach was initiated as one key response. A variety of activities were initiated by York Region including the development of a Sustainability Strategy, synchronisation of master planning, wider consideration of alternatives at the master plan level and improved public consultation. Conclusions are drawn and several recommendations are presented and discussed.

The Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM) case is unique in that it represents a social innovation in Canadian, if not North American, ecosystem-based land-use planning. A social innovation is an initiative, product, process, or program that profoundly changes the basic routines, resources, and authority flows or beliefs of any social system. Successful social innovations have durability and broad impact. We interpret the narrative of the ORM conservation process to explore the utility of an emerging social innovation conceptual model, the 'vision as social interaction' framework using resilience thinking and the role of vision in social change within complex social-ecological systems. Qualitative data from two interrelated studies of the moraine were reinterpreted and include 38 in-depth, semistructured interviews conducted between 2004-2006, as well as extensive participant observation at over 50 moraine conservation meetings, workshops, and events. The results of our study indicate that emerging model of social innovation can be linked with other models of 'radical change' such as those that employ concepts like 'policy windows' to describe opportunities for continued innovation once an initiative has reached the routinized phase. Just as with the panarchy cycle, when a social-ecological system reaches the conservation phase, the system has a propensity to collapse and reorganize. Rather than seeing this as the end of an initiative or program, such as is the case with the ORM, stakeholders can see it as an opportunity for reorganization with newly released resources and new opportunities.

A recent focusing event involving the death of a moose in the Dome open-pit mine in the community of Timmins, in northern Ontario, Canada has triggered the opening of a policy window related to the governance of resource extraction by indigenous peoples. This event, combined with several other factors, including: (1) the high price of gold; (2) a mining company seeking to demonstrate corporate social responsibility to repair its international reputation with indigenous peoples by supporting an innovative, local Indigenous-led initiative; and (3) a new policy context, including Supreme Court of Canada decisions and provisions in the updated Ontario Mining Act, that require meaningful consultation with indigenous peoples has led to the emergence of a indigenous peoples-led collaborative, social innovation. This policy window allowed for the formation of an unprecedented council of indigenous knowledge holders (elders) and traditional practitioners to help inform mine restoration and practice as well as to foster the resurgence of traditional language and culture in local indigenous communities. Here, we document this unprecedented social change opportunity.

Background. The current study established baseline nutrient intakes of youth and examined the potential for sustainability of a pilot school snack program in the remote First Nation of Kashechewan, Ontario, Canada. Methods. Twenty-four-hour dietary recalls established baseline intakes in grade 6–8 students (n=43). Subsequently, a pilot healthy school snack program was initiated. Dietary recalls were completed one week (n=43) and one year after the program (n=67). Paired Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests were used to detect changes in intakes. Impressions of the teachers (n=16), principal, and students were collected qualitatively. Results. Most youth had dietary intakes below current standards. Although vitamin C (P=0.024) and fibre (P=0.015) intakes improved significantly after one week, these improvements were not sustained over the following year. Program impressions were positive. Conclusion. The need for a nutrition program is clear. While benefits were realized in the short term, improvements could not be maintained. Policy changes are needed to address barriers to sustainability.

The remote First Nation (FN) communities of the Mushkegowuk Territory on the west coast of James Bay, Ontario, Canada are currently facing increased development pressures and the imposition of a government land use planning process. The land use planning process is mandated in the Far North Act (received Royal Assent on September 23, 2010). There is a need for capacity enhancement for community-based natural resource planning and management in the Territory. A number of frameworks are emerging for addressing change brought on by resource development and building resilience to such change at the community level. Among these include the concept of adaptive capacity. In collaboration with FN community leaders, we explored the use of "collaborative geomatics" tools to foster adaptive capacity. Our action research suggests that collaborative geomatics technologies should enhance the Mushkegowuk First Nations' adaptive capacity to address environmental and policy change by allowing them to collect and manage data collaboratively (e.g., traditional environmental knowledge, western science) to create opportunities for innovative community development, including natural resource development and management. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is seen as an instrument that is essential to realizing sustainability goals that transcend project-level undertakings (e.g. policies, plans and programmes). The purpose of this case-based, collaborative research was to extend practical and theoretical understanding of SEA to the related, but in practice poorly coordinated, processes of project-level environmental assessment (EA), master planning and regional land use planning. Semi-structured key informant interviews and review of policy documents were used as the main sources of qualitative data to explore the key events that have led to an emerging strategic approach to planning and EA in York Region. This research contributes to the application of SEA at the municipal level, and highlights the importance of an SEA-type approach as a contribution to better informed, tiered and integrated planning and decision making that is underpinned by sustainability.

This paper presents a conceptual tool, or heuristic, for describing the epistemological context for social learning within complex social-ecological systems. The heuristic integrates several definitions of social learning that emphasize the importance of critical reflection and its collaborative nature and that it is rooted in and oriented toward practice through social interactions. The conceptual tool is useful in identifying and conceptually mapping different perspectives based on types of learning described along three dimensions: typology of knowledge; different levels of critical reflection; and scale. The heuristic was originally developed in the context of an environmental planning process in southern Ontario, Canada, and is applied to identifying barriers and bridges to social learning in the case of flood damage reduction in a remote First Nations community in northern Ontario, Canada.

Social aspects in biodiversity conservation are explored through governance, social capital and social learning processes in the Long Point biosphere reserve and proposed Oak Ridges Moraine biosphere reserve, Ontario, Canada. Insights on governance, social capital and social learning are provided for both case studies. Evidence from the two cases suggests that governance, social capital and social learning are closely interrelated and important to the success of biosphere reserve biodi- versity conservation and sustainable development activities. In both the Long Point and Oak Ridges Moraine cases, civil society has led biosphere reserve logistics activities and this involvement in governance processes requires existing social capital. Civil society participation appears to result in social learning and social learning creates additional social capital and contributions to governance.