Dr. Darren Sharp is a Research Fellow at Monash Sustainable Development Institute. Darren is a sustainability transitions researcher interested in urban experimentation, living labs, grassroots innovations 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 collaborative governance of urban transition arenas.

His doctoral thesis in Humanities, completed at Curtin University, draws on action research of a living lab in Melbourne and multiple case studies to develop an agency-centred analysis of urban experimentation. Darren’s research speaks to the possibilities of social learning, institutional arrangements, and new urban imaginaries to drive the transformation of cities towards sustainability.

Darren is taking these insights into his role as Research Coordinator of the ARC Linkage project Net Zero Precincts: an interdisciplinary approach to decarbonising cities and Chief Investigator of Citizen Data Commons and Technological Sovereignty which uses participatory approaches to empower multi-stakeholders in data governance. 

Darren is also the founding Director of Social Surplus, the Australian editor of Shareable, and co-authored the book Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons which contains 137 case studies and policies that showcases how city residents around the world are using commons-based strategies to meet their needs in housing, food, transportation, work and energy.