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Multiple factors that shaped sustainability science journal: a 10-year review

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Abstract

Sustainability Science Journal celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2016, and we see this milestone as an opportunity to reflect on its decade of sustainability science research. All the published articles from 2006 to 2015 were reviewed in this study using qualitative and quantitative methods to (a) assess scope, diversity, and representativeness in the publications, (b) analyse the trends and dominance in the content, and (c) evaluate cross-disciplinary collaboration and knowledge transfer along with the practice of transdisciplinarity in sustainability science research. Our assessment shows that the journal has transformed from publishing more uniform contributions into a more diverse international journal demonstrating greater breadth in the range of contributing authors, case studies, and field of studies. We observed a progressive transition in the content of the journal from the domination of natural sciences contributions to cross-disciplinary and sustainability science research. A growing collaboration amongst authors from different disciplines also suggests that researchers from an array of backgrounds are increasingly working together, combining knowledge and advancing sustainability science. Although researchers still base their work largely on their own disciplinary knowledge, there is an increasing trend to cite cross-disciplinary research with the aim of addressing complex sustainability problems.

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Notes

  1. Online at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/pages/academic-divisions (accessed 18th Nov 2016).

  2. Online at http://www.ox.ac.uk/ (accessed 18th Nov 2016).

  3. Online at https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/by-subject (accessed 18th Nov 2016).

  4. Economics is separated as a separate discipline to highlight the role of Finance and Business sector in Sustainability Science.

  5. Bringing several disciplines together but not necessarily integrating them.

  6. Integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines.

  7. Transcending disciplinary boundaries for combined and collective integration of knowledge, methods and approaches.

  8. Here, we refer to articles that have sustainability science theories, ideas, concepts, methods and practices as central theme than merely integration of more than two disciplines.

  9. http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm.

  10. https://www.random.org/integers/.

  11. Organisation here refers to institutional publications where organisational names are referred to as authors and the organisation’s primary field of research could not be determined.

  12. http://www.wordclouds.com.

  13. Online at http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank (accessed 7th Jan 2016).

  14. The total percentage exceeds 100 here as some articles have more than one theme (Table 3).

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Ms. Julie Terry and Ms. Veronica Santafe Troncoso for their initial contribution in data analysis and preliminary research design. The first five authors received financial support from Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Water Security through Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan. The authors are also thankful to School of Environment and Sustainability of University of Saskatchewan and Dr. Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt for encouragement and support. In addition, we are also grateful to anonymous reviewers who provided helpful and constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Institute for Water Security, University of Saskatchewan, 11 Innovation Boulevard, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 3H5, Canada

    Prabin Rokaya, Razi Sheikholeslami, Sopan Kurkute, Mahtab Nazarbakhsh & Fan Zhang

  2. School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, 117 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5C8, Canada

    Prabin Rokaya, Razi Sheikholeslami, Sopan Kurkute, Mahtab Nazarbakhsh, Fan Zhang & Maureen G. Reed

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  1. Prabin Rokaya
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  2. Razi Sheikholeslami
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  3. Sopan Kurkute
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  4. Mahtab Nazarbakhsh
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  5. Fan Zhang
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  6. Maureen G. Reed
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Prabin Rokaya.

Additional information

Handled by Osamu Saito, United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability, Japan.

Appendices

Appendices

Appendix a: the anatomy of contributors

See Figs. 15 and 16.

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figure 15

Overall publications per continent based on lead author affiliations

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Fig. 16
figure 16

Publication trends per discipline based on lead author research interests over the history of the journal

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Appendix b: an overview of transdisciplinarity

See Table 3.

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Rokaya, P., Sheikholeslami, R., Kurkute, S. et al. Multiple factors that shaped sustainability science journal: a 10-year review. Sustain Sci 12, 855–868 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0495-4

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