Managing partnerships for sustainable development: The Berkeley-China sustainable transportation program

- We worked within multiple cities in China over a five-year period.
- Mutual learning occurred when critical factors were in place.
- The research revealed critical elements for successful knowledge exchange.
- A partnership's positive impact continued long after the formal relationship ended.
- Engagement significantly improved understanding of US and Chinese planning contexts.

Over a five-year period, the University of California Berkeley's Global Metropolitan Studies-China Program conducted research in partnership with local counterparts in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan, Chengdu, and Kunming. Research focused on strategies for maintaining and increasing the sustainability of the cities' transportation systems in the face of rapid economic growth and accelerating motorization, and included planning, analysis, and design of projects on transit-oriented development, non-motorized transportation, and bus rapid transit. In this paper, we focus on two cases that exemplify the positive and negative experiences in research partnerships. Through an assessment of these partnerships, we identify a core set of elements that are key to effective co-production and exchange of knowledge. The elements include: strong and engaged leadership at multiple organizational levels, engagement in capacity building projects as a strategy to develop mutual understanding, and multiagency and multidisciplinary collaboration. These findings are consistent with and elaborate on current research on knowledge transfer (Khirfan, 2011; Marsden et al., 2011). In our China work, where these elements were strong, we (including our Chinese partners) were able to incorporate strong principles of sustainable transportation into local planning. These experiences provide lessons and strategies for practitioners and researchers who plan to work in China.