Exploring collaboration experiences at the society-science nexus in a food security project in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

In the search for solutions to global challenges, the way scientific research is carried out is rapidly changing. Interdisciplinary approaches through collaborative research projects are replacing traditional approaches. As complex operational details, including stakeholder perspectives, are oft overlooked in these projects, conflict and failure are more likely. Analysing the conflict experience of stakeholders and project members in a transdisciplinary research project, this paper examines the science-society nexus. Using an international, transdisciplinary project, conflict drivers and levels of conflict are identified. Continuous communication and monitoring throughout a project’s lifetime with internal conflict prevention and management measures are proposed to facilitate collaborations.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society – Partnership, Participation
• Environment (built and natural) – Food security
• Sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not under any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the BMBF and BMZ.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has funded the project, and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) (031A249A) has co-financed the project Trans-SEC.

Notes on contributors

Katharina Löhr

Katharina Löhr is in the Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries group at the Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany and affiliated at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. She holds a Ph.D. in agricultural sciences from Humboldt University of Berlin and a Master’s degree in Conflict and Development Studies from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS UK). Research interests include co-design processes in the context of sustainable development, and the nexus of natural resource management, social cohesion and peacebuilding.

Michael Weinhardt

Michael Weinhardt is a postdoc for the entrepreneurial group dynamics research project at Technical University Berlin, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. from Free University Berlin. His research interests include social stratification and inequality, as well as methods of empirical research, transdisciplinarity and outreach activities.

Michelle Bonatti

Michelle Bonatti works at the Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany. She is Agronomy Engineer with a Master’s degree in rural development from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin. She is also a conflict mediator and educator. Her research focuses on the co-design of innovations and social learning methods for sustainable land use.

Juliane Schütt

Juliane Schütt has a Master’s in international and development economics at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, which she completed in cooperation with ZALF, implementing field research in a food security project in Tanzania.

Frieder Graef

Frieder Graef is at the Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany. He holds a Ph.D. in tropical agriculture from the University of Hohenheim, and specialises in soil science, international food security, gender and social network studies.

Stefan Sieber

Stefan Sieber is an Associate Professor at Humboldt University zu Berlin and coordinates the Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries Department at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). His domains are food and nutrition-sensitive agriculture, climate change and bioenergy. He focuses on policy and governance analysis in inter- and transdisciplinary research as well as implementation processes of innovations in the co-design of knowledge.