Dr Darren Sharp is a Senior Research Fellow at Monash Sustainable Development Institute. Darren is an interdisciplinary sustainability transitions researcher interested in urban experimentation, living labs, grassroots innovations, urban futures and the sharing economy. His work is situated at the intersection of transition management, design for social innovation and community economies thinking, with a particular interest in the governance of urban sustainability transitions. Darren was a Kármán Fellow and visiting scholar at the Kate Hamburger Kolleg Cultures of Research (c:o/re) at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.

He serves on the editorial board of Frontiers in Sustainable Cities and has published in journals such as Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, Urban Planning, Data & Policy, the Journal of Cleaner Production and Urban Policy and Research. Darren is also a member of the Regen Melbourne Systems Lab Research Council and advisor to the CULTiVATE project.

Darren is the Interdisciplinary Research Lead of the ARC Linkage project Net Zero Precincts that brings together a new approach to transition management by using design anthropology to engage with the precinct community and consider their lived experiences. This is being tested over four years through an action-oriented case study in the Monash Technology Precinct through a portfolio of Living Lab experiments across energy, mobility, buildings, data and governance.

The ARC Linkage project is being undertaken in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team from Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash Art, Design and Architecture, Faculty of Information Technology and Faculty of Arts. Partners in the Linkage from industry, academia and the community include ENGIE, the City of Monash, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the CSIRO.

Darren co-led the urban living lab Livewell Yarra which used action research to empower local residents to reduce their carbon emissions at an individual, household and community level. His research speaks to the possibilities of social learning, institutional arrangements, and new urban imaginaries to drive the transformation of cities towards sustainability.