This book tries to address these questions. The research detailed in this volume (which took place pre-Covid-19) engages with the specificities of dif-ferent contexts around the world, while seeking general lessons that can be drawn about transformations to sustainability and the role of research within them. It thus documents a new approach (or approaches) that contribute to the enterprise of “transdisciplinary” research, in which collaborations between academic and non-academic partners attempt not only to understand the world and diagnose systemic challenges of sustainability, but also to contribute to overcoming them.The next section of this chapter firstly outlines the rationale and emergence of the ‘Pathways’ Transformative Knowledge Network, from which the co-authors are drawn, and highlights the sustainable development challenges with which it engaged between 2014 and 2020.