Environmental governance research has expanded rapidly in recent years in response to mounting sustainability challenges. At the same time, concerns are growing about whether this expanding literature contributes to cumulative scientific progress or whether it remains fragmented into largely disconnected contributions.
In response to these concerns, the convenors of the Taskforce on Knowledge Cumulation, Jens Newig and Michael Rose, are pleased to announce the publication of a special issue on Knowledge Cumulation in Environmental Governance Research. Several members of the taskforce contributed as editors, authors, and reviewers.
The special issue engages with a central question for both science and practice: “[…] do the numerous individual scholarly contributions create a cumulative and reliable body of research capable of guiding policy and practice?” (Rose, Newig and Leipold 2025). In an interdisciplinary field characterised by epistemological diversity, plural concepts and methods, and incentive structures that prioritise novelty over sustained engagement, systematic knowledge cumulation remains particularly challenging.
The contributions examine knowledge cumulation both conceptually and empirically, with a focus on:
- the relationship between knowledge cumulation, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, epistemic justice, action orientation, and policy relevance;
- approaches to assessing levels of knowledge cumulation and what such assessments reveal;
- methods that support cumulative knowledge building; and
- key barriers to cumulation and possible ways forward.
