Towards More Effective and Transferable Transition Experiments – Learning Through Stratification

We argue that the increasing use of experimental approaches in transition and transformational research on potential sustainability solutions could substantially profit from application of the principles of stratification and stratified experimental design. We illustrate our proposition with two worked examples of hypothetical transition experiments and argue that the use of stratification can produce three essential benefits in transition experiments: (1) increased methodological validity and better comparability of experimental results, (2) potential scalability of sustainability solutions tested and (3) better assessment of potential transferability of sustainability solutions to other systems. Moreover, stratification and stratified design of transition experiments might be employed to address some of the recently raised criticisms regarding reproducibility of results and the appropriate use of statistical methodology in scientific experimentation in general and transition experimentation in particular