An organizing framework to break down Western-centric views of knowledge in North-South research.

Global challenges, such as climate change, persistent poverty, and food insecurity are complex problems. These societal, environmental, and economic challenges cross scientific disciplines, communities, and geographies, requiring interdisciplinary, North-South solutions. Nevertheless, prevailing sustainability science responses are Western-centric. Some seminal studies have attempted to understand and engage with diverse knowledge systems. These include decolonial and Indigenous methodologies, such as "Two-Eyed Seeing", which emphasizes the importance of using both Western and Indigenous knowledge to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the world, and participatory action research, which highlights the importance of involving participants in the research process and promoting social change through collaborative effort. However, apart from in-country research collaborations with traditional Indigenous knowledge, most North-South studies overlook the role or influence of Western-centric views and therefore fail to recognize and incorporate diverse worldviews and knowledge systems. This may, in part, reflect the tendency to categorize research into disciplinary silos, but more likely is the unintentional, yet prevalent, view that Western science is "objective and neutral." As more scholars from multiple disciplines and geographies focus on interdisciplinary North-South research, it is critical that researchers reflect on dominant research approaches and knowledge production. Studies can co-construct, reproduce, or control the forms of knowledge generated-whether intentional or unintentional. This paper presents an organizing framework to help researchers navigate, understand, and engage with diverse forms of knowledge in undertaking North-South research. The framework draws on empirical observations from the authors' interdisciplinary research and from empirical cross-cultural literature. It comprises three contextual levels of influence, featuring guiding principles and subsequent practical actions researchers can use to navigate the complexities of knowledge co-construction in North-South research. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11625-024-01478-6.

Which behaviours matter? Prioritising food waste reduction behaviours for targeted policy and program approaches.

More than half of the waste in the global food system's consumption stage comes from households, which therefore represent a critical entry point to tackle this challenge with its combined social, economic, and environmental impacts. Yet there is a tension for policy makers between promoting food waste reduction behaviours to householders and overloading them with too many options that make them less likely to engage. This study utilises an Impact-Likelihood methodology to identify the range of behaviours associated with household food waste reduction and to group them according to their impact and likelihood of adoption, as well as their current adoption rates. Scores for these measures were generated using data from an expert elicitation survey of food waste policy makers and practitioners, as well as a large-scale householder survey. The Impact-Likelihood matrix for household food waste reduction behaviours generated in this study identifies potential priority behaviours that are both impactful in tackling the substantive challenge of food waste and have a high likelihood of uptake by householders. As such, the matrix provides strategic research and decision support for policy makers in prioritising specific behaviours for more targeted engagement with householders in different geographical or jurisdictional contexts.