Since September 2025: Senior researcher at University of Bern supervising Doctorate within EU project JustREACH.
JustREACH is a Horizon research project supporting the EU Mission “Adaptation to climate change”. It’s aimed at enabling local and regional authorities, industries, businesses and citizens to realize climate adaptation plans that build on equity, ecosystem health, just transition and social justice. University of Bern is working with social learning videos to mobilize community leaders, businesses, and citizens to work with local and regional authorities in order to co-design, align and implement adaptation measures.
Since August 2021: Lecturer at BFH for consultation and knowledge exchange. Integration of SLV method and getting funding for 4 new projects including EU project GOV4ALL.
My actual focus in research lies on co-producing videos together with actors from science, administration and practice and thereby analysing their transformation knowledge in climate adaptation JustREACH and soil health GOV4ALL.
2003 – present: Initiating and co-developing activating teaching formats:
After my PhD I wanted to share my learning processes with ETH students to enable them to analyse implementation problems between science and practice, to explain them with theories from philosophy of science as well as to get them to know methods of how to foster learning processes and overcome these implementation gaps. They also worked on own case studies. This ETH lecture "Farmer view and scientist perception: Learning processes for a successful collaboration" was held biannually from 2003 - 2020. I then integrated these experiences in the ETH Winter School "Science meets Practice" which was held annually from 2011 – 2020 collaborating with the td-Lab of ETH Zürich (1) and analyzing the AHA moments PhD-students had though this format (2). Prof. Dr. Susan Thieme and I successfully adapted the SLV methodology into a lecturing format at the University of Bern. We described the developped lecture format in two book chapters (3) and (4) as well as analysed the outcome of two teaching years (5). With this Master's Seminar "Critical Sustainability Research: Semester Break at Olten Train Station we won the 2021 University Teaching Award for Geography.
[1] journal-article. Stauffacher, M. C. Zingerli, P. Fry, C. Pohl, P. Krütli (2012): Science Meets Practice: A Winter School Offers New Perspectives. GAIA -Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society 21(2). . DOI.
[2] journal-article. BinBin J. Pearce, Lisa Deutsch, Patricia Fry, Francesco Femi Marafatto & Jenny Lieu: Going beyond the AHA! moment: insight discovery for transdisciplinary research and learning. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. (2022)9:123 | . DOI.
[3] book-chapter. Thieme, S. und Fry, P. (2021): Transdisziplinarität praktisch erleben - Prinzipien für die geographische Hochschullehre. In: Prinzipien, Strukturen und Praktiken geographischer Hochschullehre. Hrsg. Jeannine Wintzer, Ivo Mossig und Angela Hof. UTB. S.105-118. . ttps://elibrary.utb.de/doi/book/10.36198/9783838556680.
[4] book-chapter. Fry, P. und Thieme, S. (2021): From the sage on the stage to the guide on the side: Langfristig Wissen erwerben mit Inverted Classroom und Social Learning Video. In: Prinzipien, Strukturen und Praktiken geographischer Hochschullehre. Hrsg. Jeannine Wintzer, Ivo Mossig und Angela Hof. UTB. S. 275-288. https://elibrary.utb.de/doi/book/10.36198/97838385..
[5] journal-article. Thieme, Susan, and Patricia Elizabeth Fry. "Teaching transdisciplinary competencies for sustainability transformation by co-producing social learning videos." GAIA-Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society 32.1 (2023): 154-161. DOI.
1993 – 2014 Transdisciplinary PhD and founding own enterprise developing SLV method:
I analysed my own experiences working at the same time at the Kanton of Aargau and at the ETH Zürich on the topic of soil monitoring/implementation and helped to initiate a SNF project. I started to work with qualitative methods using theories coming from philosophy of science as well as science and technology studies like thought collectives (Fleck) and tacit knowledge (Polanyi). Coming from Biology I became an expert in interdisciplinarity combining natural and social sciences. Because the results were very promising I looked for supervisors and organised money for a PhD (1). This transdisciplinary PhD was published in a series called "Communication and Consultation" . One of the editors from the University in Hohenheim wrote that "we believe that a ‘classic’ has been written here". Through analysing the perception of soil quality through scientists, farmers, and administrative experts I could explain the implementation deficit in soil protection. This PhD had a large impact in soil protection and Swiss agriculture.
On the basis of these findings I founded my own firm "Wissensmanagement Umwelt" in 2001, where I initiated and led the innovative project series "From Farmer to Farmer". It was a novel approach at that time to bring together scientists, farmers and administration in a multitstakeholder discussion group and to co-produce videos which conveyed farmers successful transformation knowledge . That's why I initiated a PhD within a COST project to analyse the developed methodology and the outcome (2).
Flurina Schneider analysed how this approach led to institutional learning. This PhD was also an important step into her career as she now is working as the director of ISOE. On the basis of her research, I described the methodology "social learning videos" invited by the editor M. Padmanabhan (3), connected the multistakeholder group methodology with the td-net (4) and analysed the transformation knowledge of farmers conveyed in the first project "sustainable soil use" (5). After completing several projects with the SLV method I received a mandate as knowledge exchange officer within the NRP61 where we adapted the SLV method into 16 insight and 8 outlook films to inform the public and overcome the implementation gap. By connecting Sabine Hoffmann with the EAWAG and establishing a transdisciplinary approach within the NRP61 I supported her work, which won the td-award in 2014.
I worked in following fields: Soil protection, water management, plant protection, biodiversity, climate adaptation. From 2003 - 2014 I initiated and led the working group "knowledge exchange science and practice" within SAGUF by connecting experienced researchers and practicioners and publishing several articles in GAIA.
[1] dissertation-thesis. Fry, P. (2000) Bäuerliche und naturwissenschaftliche Wahrnehmung von Bodenfruchtbarkeit im Vergleich - Kommunikationshilfen für den Bodenschutz. Dissertation Nr. 13707, ETH Zürich, Zürich. Referent: Prof. Hans Sticher, Institut für terrestrische Ökologie. Koreferentinnen: Prof. Helga Nowotny Collegium Helveticum, Prof. Heide Inhetveen, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.
[2] journal-article. Schneider, F., Fry, P., Ledermann, T. und Rist, S. (2009) Social Learning Processes in Swiss Soil Protection - The From Farmer - To Farmer Project. Human Ecology 37: 475-489. . DOI.
[3] book-chapter. Fry, P. (2018): Social learning videos: A Method for successful collaboration between science and practice. In:Padmanabhan, Martina (editor). Transdisciplinarity: How research is changing to meet the challenges of sustainability. Routledge Series: Studies in Environment, Culture and Society. Editors: Bernhard Glaeser & Heike Egner. . DOI.
[4] journal-article. Fry Patricia & Thieme Susan (2019). A social learning video method: Identifying and sharing successful transformation knowledge for sustainable soil management in Switzerland. Soil Use and Management 35: 185 194. . DOI.
[5] website. https://naturalsciences.ch/co-producing-knowledge-explained/methods/td-net_toolbox/multi_stakeholder_discussion_group. https://naturalsciences.ch/co-producing-knowledge-explained/methods/td-net_toolbox/multi_stakeholder_discussion_group.
