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.

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. 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. Net Zero Precincts is bringing together a new approach to transition management by using design anthropology to engage with the precinct community and consider their lived experiences. This will be tested over the next four years in an action-oriented case study in the Monash Technology Precinct through three Living Lab experiments across energy, mobility and buildings.

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 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.