In the final chapter of this handbook, we reflect on the development of sustainability transitions research (STR) by examining its origins, core focus, achievements, critiques, and future directions. Using the metaphor of a tree, we argue that STR has grown from deep roots in various disciplines to develop a broad crown of research branches, all connected by a shared focus on socio-technical change. The field’s rapid expansion brings both opportunities and challenges. While a common language fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, it also risks rigidity and exclusivity, highlighting a tension between cohesion and fragmentation. Additionally, disseminating STR findings into its foundational disciplines and addressing growing political and social responsibilities remain key challenges. STR forms a robust community while requiring ongoing (self-)reflection. Rather than defining its trajectory, we aim to foster dialogue on STR’s evolution, recognizing that, like a tree, research fields need continuous nurturing to remain vital and productive.

Science, Technology, and Society (STS), a young academic field, explores how science and technology shape society and vice versa. Its rise stemmed from a growing awareness of technology’s impact on societies (e.g., think about artificial intelligence and social change); science’s nonobjective nature (i.e., scientific knowledge is influenced by social and cultural contexts); concerns about scientific advancements (e.g., the potential misuse of genetic engineering); and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. STS draws tools from various disciplines to tackle complex issues. STS researchers analyze the "goodness" and "badness" of science and technology. They tackle key concerns such as universality vs. context-dependence (i.e., does science hold everywhere, or does each culture shape it?); the influence of social forces on science (e.g., who decides research priorities and how they decide); risk analysis and ethical considerations to balance technological progress with safety and responsibility; and democratizing science and engineering (i.e., increasing public access and participation in these fields). STS encourages critical thinking about the complex interplay between science, technology, and society. It aims to guide us toward a future where advancements serve the greater good, ethically and inclusively.

In this chapter, I introduce philosophical conceptions of dignity and how the framework can serve as the foundation for the interdisciplinary collaboration between design and law as a way to promote human and social values. I further highlight the significance of dignity by providing problematic examples in the intersection of design and law. I propose that there is a need to investigate the moral principles underlying human-centered design in collaboration with law. Together, design and law will contribute to the development of service systems that can improve dignity in citizens’ everyday lives and create positive and real changes in the world.

This chapter details ten years of the methods we have deployed in the NuLawLab’s project work with community members, organizations, and legal entities. We begin by examining our approach to interdisciplinary collaboration as it has evolved over time, followed by detailing one such partnership, Stable Ground. We next tackle aspects of participatory collaborative design by examining how we created our RePresent games. The third suite of methods we detail is service design and how we used those concepts to aid survivors of domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We close by distilling each experience into a handful of takeaways that we hope will prove useful to other legal designers as they consider applying these methods in their work.

This chapter investigates possible future directions of the DOHaD framework. Specifically, it discusses options to translate the framework into the Anthropocene. In a first step, I outline how recent research on epigenetics, the human microbiome, and planetary boundaries challenges notions of origin and development embedded in DOHaD research. I then outline three distinct modes of interdisciplinary collaboration: subordination–service, integration–synthesis, and agonistic–antagonistic. I discuss how each of these modes offers the possibility to conduct research across the nature–culture divide and address human bodies and environments as anthropogenic due to their complex natural, social, and political histories. I conclude that the DOHaD framework needs to embrace the idea of anthropogenic biology to address the challenges of the Anthropocene and take responsibility for the knowledge that it produces in an attempt to shape a politics of habitability for our planet.

Communicating research findings is a storytelling practice. The stories we tell as researchers are important to how the publics understand research findings and how research circulates in society. This is especially true for fields that have important social, political, or policy implications, such as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). In this chapter, we introduce the term ‘narrative choreographies’ to describe how researchers, clinicians, science journalists, and other actors embed DOHaD knowledge claims as part of larger scientific, social, and political narratives. Using examples from our own research, we show how DOHaD narratives can inadvertently pathologise and stigmatise marginalised people, such as low-income mothers and obese mothers. In order to combat this potentiality, we advocate for deliberately choreographing DOHaD narratives to address structural inequality and advocate for social justice and health equity. At the end of the chapter, we offer concrete recommendations for DOHaD researchers who are interested in reflecting on and workshopping their own narrative choreographies to better support the healthy development of parents, children, and communities.

The environment represents a central research object in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and related fields such as epigenetics. This chapter discusses how DOHaD researchers operationalise and measure environments in and through their research practices to produce knowledge on how environmental experiences relate to health outcomes over the lifecourse. While DOHaD researchers discursively acknowledge the complexity of lived environments, we identify some of the current challenges to put this complexity into research practice, often resulting in reductionist accounts of the dynamic nature of human experiences. By proposing the term ’doing environments,’ we emphasise how practices to enact environments for scientific inquiry are products of decisions and negotiation processes that need careful consideration on what social and political consequences these ’doings’ might have and for whom. To that end, we aim to lay the ground for interdisciplinary conversations to engage in critical reflections about the social and political dimensions of doing environments in DOHaD research.

Community assessment utilizes an ecological approach by gathering qualitative and quantitative data to examine contextual factors that may play a role in the creation and maintenance of resources, needs, and concerns impacting a community. Inclusion of culturally competent interdisciplinary stakeholders who have knowledge of a community from a strengths-based perspective is critical. We highlight the process of community assessment from the initial planning stage to developing a community action plan. Strategies such as recruiting a community advisory board and use of qualitative (e.g., interviews, focus groups, observations, social media applications, photo journals), and quantitative measures focusing on various facets of community (e.g., resources, social capital, neighborhood characteristics) are considered important parts of the community needs assessment. Two case examples are provided to illustrate how community assessment can be used to inform service provision. The first case addresses the needs of underserved members of a growing community of refugee families, and the second addresses concerns to improve the academic performance of Black and Latinx students in two large public school districts. Both cases reflect the complexities of community-based assessment involving stakeholders from different professional disciplines with potentially unique agendas, various qualitative and quantitative data sources, and innovative action plans.

The final chapter summarises the main findings discussed in the book and looks ahead at future challenges and possibilities, drawing out implications from the research described in the earlier chapters with the aim of informing an improved understanding of the interdependence between social integration and language development in the schooling of newcomer EAL students. We conclude by identifying three key dimensions of a framework for optimal analysis and enhancement of the socio-educational experience of newcomer EAL students. These dimensions require further attention from researchers and practitioners: interdependence of second language development and social integration; inclusive pedagogy; and transactional home–school–home communication.

This chapter gives examples of applying the creative abilities to common research challenges, using the examples of choosing a dissertation topic, cultivating your relationship with your advisor, and managing time efficiently.

This chapter gives examples of applying the creative abilities to common research challenges, using the examples of writing a paper, developing a team project, and designing a class.