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  1. The Belmont Forum and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) organized an online training workshop on transdisciplinary (TD) approaches at the Sustainability, Research, and Innovation Congress (SRI) in 2022. The IAI is an intergovernmental organization that brings together 19 countries from the Americas to support adaptation to the world’s changing environment. The Belmont Forum is a consortium of major funders and international science councils to promote knowledge about sustainability science. The workshop aimed to create a safe environment for participants to share their impressions of and experiences about transdisciplinary research, using the Americas (IAI mandate) as a launching point for TD approaches globally. The workshop consisted of two online sessions: Transdisciplinary Approach 101 and Transdisciplinary Case Studies. The objectives of the current workshop report are: 1) to identify the key takeaways regarding common challenges and opportunities for transdisciplinary practice among workshop participants’ experiences, upon which to base recommendations for best practices, e.g., managing power imbalances, conflicting priorities and timeframes, enhancing communication and consolidating contextual awareness. 2) to offer insights to build better strategies for “train the trainers'' processes around transdisciplinarity, especially in congresses and short-term events, including using an experience-based approach, offering specific tools and increasing the participation of non-academic partners. This report encourages the implementation of other training processes by experienced transdisciplinary researchers, practitioners, and funders, in order to build capacities for collaborative approaches in diverse scientific communities. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 26, 2024
  2. In this paper, we consider how learning networks build capacity for system transformation. We define learning networks as inter-organizational voluntary collaboratives that nurture professional expertise, and describe their potential to catalyze systemic change by disrupting old habits, fostering new relationships, and providing freedom to experiment. We underscore the complexity of designing, facilitating, and sustaining learning networks, noting four distinct ways learning networks can foster systemic resilience, 1) social-psychological 2) engineering 3) social-ecological, and 4) emancipatory. We then describe our research methods and introduce four learning network case study analyses, in order of their age and relative progress towards transformation: • National Alliance for Broader Impacts (NABI) • 100 Resilient Cities Network (100RC) • Fire Adapted Community Learning Network (FAC Net) • START (Global Change SysTem for Analysis, Research & Training) 
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  3. NSEC commissioned researchers to prepare four case studies to identify the opportunities and challenges of a learning network approach, with the purpose of informing NSEC's design. This report outlines the findings from those case studies. The report's primary audience are the designers and members of learning networks in the improving STEM education space. 
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