The role of environmental sociology in interdisciplinary environmental research

In the tradition of sociology, we find quite different views on cooperation between sociology and natural science, and the same goes with environmental sociology.  Today in environmental research broad interdisciplinarity, interaction across the deeply rooted conceptual and cultural boundaries between natural and social sciences,  is increasingly favoured in research calls, for example.  At the same time, societal, political, scientific and managerial trends are pushing environmental policy and natural resource management towards more collaborative approaches. Stakeholder engagement, collaboration, or participation and shared learning have become buzz-words and hardly any environmental assessment or other policy effort today can be presented without some reference to public participation, stakeholders and their involvement in the process. It seems that we need methodological solutions and analytical tools which, on the one hand, allow citizens and stakeholder groups to participate in their own terms and with their expertise, and which, on the other hand, can be used to make information (originating from different sources or disciplines) commensurate for environmental decision-making.  This paper explores the role of environmental sociology and sociologists in the field of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary environmental research. First, it discusses the theoretical premises of sociology as a discipline in interdisciplinary research. Then it looks at the definitions, categories and typologies of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.  Third, the paper examines research cases in which environmental sociologists have participated.  It is suggested that the most comprehensible role for sociologists is in empirical and methodological interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cases in which integrated approach as well interactive and dialogic expertise are needed. Sociologists are good knowledge facilitators or mediators between different sources of knowledge reminding, for example, that lay knowledge(s) cannot be considered stable and fixed, but evolving as science does.