Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.8
3.9
Journals
Sustainability
Special Issues
Impactful Innovation for Environmental and Social Sustainability
sustainability-logo
Submit to Sustainability Review for Sustainability Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

► Journal Menu

Journal Browser

► Journal Browser
share announcement

Impactful Innovation for Environmental and Social Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2022) | Viewed by 7330

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Cees de Bont

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK
Interests: design research; innovation adoption; design education
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The purpose of the issue is to find out more about the diverse approaches to innovation that aim to arrive at sustainable outcomes that contribute to society. The studies invited to this Special Issue should have a focus on the coming together of scientific and technical expertise on the one hand and social and societal needs on the other. Even though there is a lot of academic knowledge and expertise on sustainability (both on environmental and social sustainability) across a multitude of disciplines, many of the behaviours of individuals, communities and organisations continue to be unsustainable. It often seems that knowledge and expertise across different disciplines and from academia to society are not properly lined up. It is at this interface between academic disciplines and societal needs that progress is needed. Potential ways out of this could come from a variety of approaches, such as system thinking, integrative frameworks, multiple stakeholder methods, policy making, transformative design, innovation management, etc.

This issue will supplement knowledge that relates to technical disciplines only, e.g., technical research to make batteries more efficient, to collaborative projects in which knowledge from technical disciplines is synthesised with knowledge from sociology, cognitive sciences and business and management sciences and built upon through creative, often co-creative, actions. We are interested in innovation that comes out of academic research, from small start-up companies and from larger organisations, in the public or private domain.

The Special Issue aims at frameworks that support interdisciplinary collaboration.

Prof. Dr. Cees de Bont
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable innovation
  • trans-disciplinary design
  • societal impact

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

31 pages, 1532 KiB  
Article
A Storytelling Methodology to Facilitate User-Centered Co-Ideation between Scientists and Designers
by Elise Talgorn, Monique Hendriks, Luc Geurts and Conny Bakker
Sustainability 2022, 14(7), 4132; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14074132 - 30 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2824
Abstract
Successful implementation of sustainable innovation requires strong collaborative ecosystems. In particular, collaboration between scientific and people-centered expertise (e.g., designers) is essential to bring technical innovation through contextualized, meaningful and attractive experiences. However, in practice, these types of expertise are siloed and struggle to [...] Read more.
Successful implementation of sustainable innovation requires strong collaborative ecosystems. In particular, collaboration between scientific and people-centered expertise (e.g., designers) is essential to bring technical innovation through contextualized, meaningful and attractive experiences. However, in practice, these types of expertise are siloed and struggle to communicate and think together. We present a creative design method based on participatory story building to support collaborative user-centered ideation between technology scientists and designers. The core of the method is a new story creation model, the three-tension framework, that facilitates the exploration of users’ experiences and needs during ideation. To evaluate the method’s effectiveness, we conducted open-ended interviews with participants. We found that the method facilitates the expression of different perspectives and outside-the-box creative thinking. An originality and strength of our method is that it favors the discovery of new issues and pain points—rather than only solutions. This, combined with idea enrichment by multidisciplinary expertise, contributes to generating ideas in a broader range of application areas than usual. Our results indicate that participatory storytelling has the potential to facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration and to bring user-centered thinking to non-design stakeholders in order to envision user needs in future scenarios and new ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impactful Innovation for Environmental and Social Sustainability)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

17 pages, 1118 KiB  
Article
“If I Was the Boss of My Local Government”: Perspectives of People with Intellectual Disabilities on Improving Inclusion
by Phillippa Carnemolla, Jack Kelly, Catherine Donnelley, Aine Healy and Megan Taylor
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9075; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13169075 - 13 Aug 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 3580
Abstract
Despite many initiatives to reframe and support inclusion for people with disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities continue to experience social exclusion in their local communities. This study shares the perspectives of people with an intellectual disability on what matters to them in their [...] Read more.
Despite many initiatives to reframe and support inclusion for people with disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities continue to experience social exclusion in their local communities. This study shares the perspectives of people with an intellectual disability on what matters to them in their local communities. This study aims to inform local governments of the value of engaging with and listening to local people with intellectual disabilities and is an important exploration of how the social sustainability of cities is framed and valued by people who have historically been socially and geographically excluded. Focus groups and interviews were conducted in six local government areas, with a mix of metropolitan and regional areas, in two states of Australia—NSW and Victoria. The study analysed how 45 Australian adults with intellectual disabilities described their local communities and conceptualised better inclusion. The results were collated and organised by applying an adapted framework of inclusive cities. The participants expressed the need for safe, accessible and clean public amenities; accessible information; appropriate communication; and for people to be more respectful, friendly and understanding of the needs of people with intellectual disabilities. This study suggests that local governments can take action in order to improve social sustainability by engaging with local people with intellectual disabilities as citizens, advisors and employees, and by educating the wider community about respect and social inclusion for all. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impactful Innovation for Environmental and Social Sustainability)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-2
Back to TopTop