5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Societal grand challenges, such as the consequences of human activities on the planetary environment, have called for new modes of knowledge production and use. Scholars have been divided in their assessments wether society would be able to adapt to self-created risks of environmental deterioriaton and climate change. In trying to cope with these challenges, research funding policies in many countries have formulated the aspiration of “knowledge transfer,” implying the expectation to create innovative social change through academic research. Applying several partially overlapping concepts, such as knowledge use, knowledge exchange, knowledge translation, knowledge diffusion, innovation, organizational learning, expertise, transdisciplinary research or transformative research, research has shown on the one hand that linear models of “knowledge transfer” are far too simple to grasp the complex processes of epistemic change and innovation as well as the structural conditions that allow them to be realized. On the other hand, despite nuanced differences, these concepts seem to share the aspiration of bridging the gap between research and practice. For example, the notion of transformative research formulates an academic understanding of how research should be conducted that contrasts with Weber’s notion of value-free science. Especially regarding the challenges of climate change, transformative research strives to create “socially robust knowledge” that can be used for policy formulation and changing societal practices. Can concepts striving to bridge the gap between research and practice be understood as a form of “reflexive modernisation”? Which are the relevant structures and processes in endeavours of “knowledge transfer”?