What is transdisciplinarity - and what are its methods? How does a living lab work? What is the purpose of citizen science, student-organized teaching and cooperative education? This handbook unpacks key terms and concepts to describe the range of transdisciplinary learning in the context of academic education. Transdisciplinary learning turns out to be a comprehensive innovation process in response to the major global challenges such as climate change, urbanization or migration. A reference work for students, lecturers, scientists, and anyone wanting to understand the profound changes in higher education.

This book analyses and describes the effects of the reforms of the European science systems on research. Taking the multilevel governance of the science system into account, the authors describe the effects of the reforms on different aspects: research collaborations and research lines, PhD education, performance profiles, research funding and legal aspects. The first part of the book deals with “PhD education” from an economic perspective. How successful are Research Training Groups and is heterogeneity really a factor of success? What kind of PhD education leads to success? The second part focuses on the interactions of governance and research. How do changes at the national and organisational level influence research cooperation, research lines and research performance? The third part reflects the Europeanisation and Internationalisation of research and research funding. To what extent are research collaborations becoming international? How is the role of European funding agencies changing?

There is a peculiar dissonance in innovation research. On the one hand, the label innovation is applied to almost everything: new products, processes, services, methods, techniques. Even the diffusion of innovations to all spheres of society is called innovation. On the other hand, we find that the main focus of innovation research is still on bringing technology to market. This dissonance provoked the central questions discussed at the 2nd International Conference on Indicators and Concepts of Innovation (ICICI 2008) on «Non-technological and non-economic innovations and their impact on economy» hosted by the Competence Centre for Management at the Berne School of Business and Administration: What forms and dimensions of non-technological and non-economic innovations can nonetheless be found both theoretically and empirically? What impact do these innovations have on the economy? Are there actually innovations without a non-technological and non-economic dimension, viz. purely technological or economic innovations? Consisting of selected answers to these questions, this volume presents international scholarly approaches beyond the «technology goes economic market» mainstream of innovation research. They are integrated in a theoretical framework for the analysis of socially robust innovations, i.e. innovations that succeed on more than one market and are therefore both more sustainable and more profitable. The 2nd International Conference on Indicators and Concepts of Innovation (ICICI 2008) has been supported by the SCOPES programme of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

2007b: 115 ff.; Jansen 2007c: 236 ff.). “Governance patterns” here means a chain of interconnected mechanisms which can be observed empirically. “Governance p- terns” can be roughly de?ned as “complex regulatory structures coordinating the actions of interdependent actors”. Governance patterns can relate to hierarchical as well as to lateral coordination mechanisms. Enforcement can be based on law, p- fessional norms or informal and implicit norms or customs. Moreover, the regulatory structures or individual mechanisms inside them can be established and sanctioned by public as well as by private actors. There is in fact not necessarily an actor in charge of controlling outcomes as for instance in market competition. In the next section, I will introduce the reader to the changing role of the state in science policy. The third section presents the governance model for the p- lic research sector which was developed by the research group and underlies the 1 contributions in this anthology. The ?nal section gives an overview of the papers.

Expert interviews are today a standard method of qualitative approach in the social sciences. It is surprising that methodological reflections about the expert interview are still lacking. This book gives a comprehensive overview of their theory and practice. The contributors are experienced theorists and practitioners of expert interviews.