TY - JOUR AB - The establishment of new interdisciplinary fields such as ecological economics, human ecology or technology assessment can be interpreted as a logical consequence of striving for new sustainability sciences that address current global, multi-dimensional and multi-scale challenges. They set out to bridge the gap between the natural and the social sphere, between scientific analysis and societal action. This papers aims at re-assessing the contribution of established inter-disciplines to sustainable development. Journal articles of ecological economics, technology assessment and science and technology studies are analysed and compared along several proposed features of sustainability science. The results converge in two crucial aspects. (1) Concise societal or political recommendations are not part of present day 'normal science', be it a disciplinary or an explicitly interdisciplinary research context. (2) Participatory exercises are rarely applied as a socio-politically embedded practice, despite a high interest in such exercises as an object of study and discussion. AU - Kastenhofer, K. AU - Bechtold, U. AU - Wilfing, H. DA - 2011/01/02/ DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.12.008 JF - Ecological Economics PY - 2011 SE - 2011/01/01/ SP - 835-843 TI - Sustaining sustainability science: The role of established inter-disciplines UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800910005033 VL - 70/4 ER -