A transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented research approach: Sounds nice but what do you mean?

In English This paper discusses transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented approaches to research on urbansustainable development. Phronetic planning research, as described by Bent Flyvberg (2004), is highlighted as one interesting approach which combines many of the general themes here dealt with. A special section is devoted to discuss quality criteria of transdisciplinary research. The paper is written as a background to a thesis in progress on Malmö and urban sustainable development.