A transdisciplinary approach to nuclear waste management: Opening research with a Citizens’ Working Group

TL;DR

This paper explores how involving citizens in nuclear waste management research can improve knowledge sharing and trust between scientists and the public.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel transdisciplinary approach involving a Citizens’ Working Group in nuclear waste management research.

Findings

Collaboration with a Citizens’ Working Group provided empirical insights into nuclear waste management.

Multiple methods like surveys and interviews helped foster trust and knowledge exchange.

The approach shows potential for application to other complex societal and technical challenges.

Abstract

Science often tackles sustainability challenges by not only addressing them (inter-)disciplinary but additionally engaging in societal aspects through transdisciplinary research. Siting a deep-geological repository is a technical and societal challenge. In this study, we present a unique approach that entailed a 4 year collaboration between our research team and a Citizen’s Working Group (CWG) on nuclear waste management in Germany. We explored whether and how knowledge could be effectively transferred among researchers and the CWG, as well as how mutual trust could be fostered and maintained. Seventeen ordinary citizens across Germany were selected via a multistep process, including an online survey and interviews. Their contributions provided valuable empirical insights and informed interdisciplinary research questions. We describe this new and challenging process with its multiple methods (surveys, workshops, observations, and interviews) and reflect on our experiences based on a rich set of empirical data. Finally, we discuss the potential for generalization and application of this approach to other topics.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-025-02214-9.

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