Local ecosystem services have deteriorated all over the world for various reasons. Ecosystem services should be managed by collaboration of various stakeholders, both within and from outside the communities. In order to achieve such collaborative management, the formation and circulation of local knowledge systems deeply embedded in real local settings is desperately needed. Integrated Local Environmental Knowledge (ILEK, Fig. 1), a novel concept of local knowledge blending scientific as well as various types of knowledge systems among stakeholders, is produced, circulated and utilized in diverse cases of local transdisciplinary research and actions to support adaptive societal transformations toward sustainability. Our project aimed to clarify mechanisms to facilitate production and circulation of ILEK and ILEK-based adaptive transformation of local communities. We also analyzed mechanisms of cross-scale linkages of knowledge co-production regarding global environment problems across global, regional and local scales. Through the transdisciplinary integration of these research results, we aimed to propose the design of “science for/with society” and “society making best use of science” for bottom-up solutions of global environmental problems.

The residential researchers embedded in local communities and bilateral knowledge translators bridging gaps between different knowledge systems across different spatial scales and governance levels were found to play important roles to facilitate collective actions among diverse stakeholders to promote adaptive transformations of local communities toward sustainability. We constructed a conceptual model of ILEK-based adaptive societal transformations focusing on functions of these important actors (ILEK Triangle, Fig. 2), and identified hypothetical categories of important enablers of ILEK-based adaptive societal transformations. Transdisciplinary research partnering with diverse local stakeholders opened a new TD research approach, resulted in identification of diversity and multiplicity of bilateral knowledge translations, both within local communities and/or crossing spatial scales and governance levels, as the important factors to create linkages across different spatial scales and governance levels from local to global.

The residential researchers embedded in local communities and bilateral knowledge translators bridging gaps between different knowledge systems across different spatial scales and governance levels were found to play important roles to facilitate collective actions among diverse stakeholders to promote adaptive transformations of local communities toward sustainability. We constructed a conceptual model of ILEK-based adaptive societal transformations focusing on functions of these important actors (ILEK Triangle, Fig. 2), and identified hypothetical categories of important enablers of ILEK-based adaptive societal transformations. Transdisciplinary research partnering with diverse local stakeholders opened a new TD research approach, resulted in identification of diversity and multiplicity of bilateral knowledge translations, both within local communities and/or crossing spatial scales and governance levels, as the important factors to create linkages across different spatial scales and governance levels from local to global.