I am a Norwegian researcher working at the intersection of environmental sustainability, multi-actor research collaboration, and knowledge equity. My work is driven by a central question: How can people with fundamentally different ways of knowing collaborate equitably to jointly diagnose and address complex sustainability challenges? 

This question emerged from a growing recognition that many sustainability initiatives bring together scientists, practitioners, policymakers, Indigenous peoples, and local communities, yet often struggle to create genuinely equitable collaboration, both in knowledge co-creation and in joint problem solving. Since 2022, I have focused on understanding why these collaborations frequently fall short of their ambitions and how they can be redesigned to enable more inclusive and productive dialogue across different ways of knowing. 

To investigate these challenges, I conduct empirical research across diverse contexts, including transdisciplinary research projects, scientific writing and publishing, local journalism, and municipal land-use planning. My work combines interviews, participant observation, and analyses of written texts, allowing me to develop new concepts and methodological approaches through an iterative dialogue between empirical evidence and systematic critical reflection on the strengths and limitations of existing concepts and theories. 

This research has led to the development of several novel conceptual and methodological contributions. Among these are the concepts of cross-cultural dialogue and epistemic literacy for sustainable development, together with practical approaches including the Frame-Based Method and the Four-Step Approach to Foster Epistemic Literacy. 

Epistemic literacy for sustainable development refers to the capacity of individuals and institutions to recognize diverse ways of knowing, identify relevant forms of knowledge, critically reflect on how positionality, professional background, and institutional context shape collaboration, communicate across epistemic and ontological differences, evaluate knowledge, and be attentive to underlying power relations and asymmetries, and work with diverse knowledge holders to develop robust responses to sustainability challenges. 

My research identifies insufficient epistemic literacy as one of the principal barriers to equitable collaboration in multi-actor and transdisciplinary sustainability initiatives. The methodological approaches I have developed translate these conceptual insights into research practice. The Frame-Based Method encourages researchers to critically examine how scientific writing shapes representations of local and Indigenous knowledge, while the Four-Step Approach provides a structured process for strengthening epistemic literacy and supporting more equitable collaboration among actors with different ways of knowing. 

A further contribution of my work is the concept of cross-cultural dialogue as an alternative to approaches that seek to integrate, translate, or synthesize different knowledge systems. Rather than attempting to reconcile diverging epistemologies and ontologies into a unified framework, cross-cultural dialogue creates conditions in which distinct ways of knowing are respected and appraised on their own terms and can contribute collaboratively to the co-creation of robust sustainability solutions without requiring epistemic integration or knowledge hierarchies. 

I am currently a Visiting Researcher at the University of Bergen (SVT) and an Associate Member of CEARC (Cultures, Environnements, Arctique, Représentations, Climat) in France. My international research experience includes research positions at Utrecht University’s Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development in the Netherlands and CEARC in France. At Utrecht University, I worked on the SeMPER Arctic project and later joined CEARC as a researcher on the CLIMArcTIC project. This international experience continues to inform my research on knowledge equity, environmental sustainability, and collaboration across different ways of knowing. 

I hold a PhD in Educational Sciences. Before turning my full attention to research on knowledge equity and sustainability, I was an Associate Professor at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), where I developed and coordinated Master's courses, taught graduate students, supervised Master's theses, and evaluated Master's theses. Earlier in my career, I taught natural science, physics and mathematics in Norwegian upper secondary (pre-university) schools. This background in interdisciplinary education continues to influence my interest in how people learn to engage critically and constructively with different forms of knowledge. 

For the most up-to-date list of my publications: see ORCiD profile Roxana Roos

R. Roos (2025) Using cross-cultural dialogue to break down inappropriate knowledge hierarchies Guest blog at Integration and Implementation Insights A community blog and repository of resources for improving research impact on complex real-world problems

R. Roos (2024) Improving how we do research with indigenous and local communities. Guest blog at Integration and Implementation Insights A community blog and repository of resources for improving research impact on complex real-world problems

Making knowledge inclusive? Improving how we do research with Indigenous and local communities, News item Utrecht University, 25 March 2024.

For the most up-to-date list of my publications, see:

ORCiD profile Roxana Roos

CLIMArcTIC “From regional to global impacts of climate change in the Arctic: an interdisciplinary perspective”. (Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR, France)

Guest editor Research Topic Frontiers in Climate: Decolonial Perspectives on Arctic Resilience

SeMPER Arctic Sense Making, Place attachement, and Extended networks as sources of Resilience in the Arctic (Belmont Forum Arctic 2019 Science for Sustainability)