Sustainability science
Mode 2 Knowledge Production
A model of research that is transdisciplinary, application-oriented and socially distributed — contrasted with traditional disciplinary ("Mode 1") science.
Definition
Mode 2 knowledge production, a concept introduced by Gibbons and colleagues in The New Production of Knowledge (1994), describes knowledge generated in the context of application: transdisciplinary rather than disciplinary, carried out by heterogeneous, transient teams inside and outside universities, socially accountable and reflexive, and judged by a wider range of quality criteria than Mode 1 academic science.
References
Mode 1 vs Mode 2 attributes, context of application, transdisciplinarity
socially distributed, application-oriented characterisation
Overview
What it means
In Mode 2, problems are defined by the context of use — a watershed, a city, a supply chain — rather than by a discipline, and practitioners, communities and policymakers co-produce both questions and answers.
How it is used
Sustainability science, transdisciplinary research programmes and citizen science invoke Mode 2 to justify co-design with stakeholders and integration of local and indigenous knowledge alongside academic expertise.
Why it matters
Sustainability problems are systemic and place-based; Mode 2 provides the theoretical licence for the collaborative research approaches those problems demand.
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