Pattern languages as a design tool to tackle "wicked problems" in sustainability science

Humanity is facing global and local sustainability challenges that call for the involvement of a wide range of expertise drawn from academia, civil society, the private sector, as well as funding and development agencies. The challenge will be to leverage this diversity to nurture decision making. To make such discussions successful we propose a pattern language approach. It can be used as a practical step-by-step process to guide interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and to facilitate transdisciplinary interactions between the academic and nonacademic worlds. The patterns are documented and freely accessible online in the Sustainable Science Pattern database.