ITD24 Arichve: Sessions 091-120

by Timothy Bland, Roos van Lin

Utrecht University wants to offer students an environment in which they are able to develop their talents to the greatest possible extent, so that, upon graduation, they are able to contribute to resolving the challenges facing society (Strategic Plan 2025, Utrecht University). Such challenges are often complex and defy straightforward solutions. To prepare students for these challenges, we want students to learn beyond the boundaries of their discipline and the boundaries of the university. To this end, Utrecht University has launched several educational innovation programmes to encourage and support this transition: Interdisciplinary Education, which aims to foster the integration of disciplinary insights and perspectives within education, and Community Engaged Learning, which aims to facilitate education in which students, teachers and external partners work together on shared social issues

This session will be an interactive exploration of the institutionalization of intersdisciplinary and community engaged learning (or other transdisciplinary) practices. What are must haves and nice to haves to structurally embed these educational innovations within higher education? During the session we will share lessons learned from the Interdisciplinary Education programme and Community Engaged Learning programme at Utrecht University. Topics we will discuss are:

• Mission and vision

• Faculty support

• Student support

• Institutional support

Session Objectives:

1. To share the institutionalization process of interdisciplinary education and community-engaged learning programs at Utrecht University.

2. To identify key challenges and successes encountered during the implementation of these initiatives.

3. To facilitate reflective discussions on lessons learned and best practices for promoting inter- and transdisciplinarity within higher education institutions.

Session Structure:

Introduction (10 minutes)

• Provide an overview of the institutional context of Utrecht University and the significance of interdisciplinary education and community engagement initiatives within this context.

Panel Presentation (25 minutes)

• Invited speakers, involved in the interdisciplinary and community engaged learning programme, share their experiences and insights on the institutionalization journey of these educational innovations.

• Speakers discuss key milestones, challenges, successes, and transformative moments encountered during the implementation phase. Speakers can give recommendations for fostering inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration within higher education settings.

Interactive Discussion (20 minutes)

• Facilitate a guided discussion among participants to reflect on the panel presentations and share their own experiences, challenges, and insights related to interdisciplinary education and community engagement. Dependent on group size this can be done plenary or in break-out groups.

Our aim is to explore questions such as:

• What are the common challenges faced by your institutions when implementing interdisciplinary education and community engagement initiatives?

• How can institutional structures and policies be adapted to better support these initiatives?

• What strategies have proven effective in fostering collaboration between academic disciplines and community partners?

5. Wrap-Up and Closing Remarks (5 minutes)

• Summarize key takeaways from the session.

• Provide resources for further reading and support on interdisciplinary education and community engagement.

by Giulia Sonetti

The "Cycling to Care" (c2c) project, funded by a MSCA individual fellowship, exemplifies how integrating diverse knowledges within inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) frameworks can catalyze significant societal and environmental transformations.

Rooted in the need to address the twin crises of declining mental health among youth and environmental degradation, the c2c project leverages the innovative "Cycling Without Age" (CWA) initiative. By engaging young volunteers and senior citizens in guided cycling tours, c2c fosters intergenerational dialogue and direct interaction with urban and natural landscapes, serving as a living lab for exploring the efficacy of ITD approaches in real-world settings.

The c2c project is grounded in theories of transformative learning and sustainability education. It draws upon a diverse theoretical base, integrating concepts from environmental psychology, public health, and urban planning. The project's theoretical framework underscores the importance of emotional resilience, community-oriented action, and participatory research methods in fostering sustainable behaviors and attitudes.

c2c employs a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative research to evaluate the impact of intergenerational cycling on participants' mental health and environmental attitudes. The methodology includes pre- and post-engagement surveys, interviews, and focus groups, facilitating an in-depth understanding of the participants' experiences and the socio-environmental impacts of the initiative.

A significant component of the c2c project is its focus on building ITD capacity by training young volunteers as both researchers and activists. This dual role enables participants, selected among UPC engineering students, to contribute to the project's research objectives while simultaneously gaining skills relevant to their personal and professional development. The project thus exemplifies how ITD projects can serve as powerful platforms for experiential learning and capacity building.

c2c integrates scientific knowledge with local and experiential knowledge through its community-based approach. By involving participants from different backgrounds and ages, the project facilitates a rich exchange of perspectives, enhancing the relevance and applicability of its findings. This integration is critical in addressing the often complex and localized nature of sustainability challenges.

The project includes a robust evaluation component, assessing the effectiveness of its ITD approach in achieving intended educational and environmental outcomes. This involves analyzing changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding sustainability and mental health, providing valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of ITD projects in fostering real-world change.

The c2c project offers insights into the practical challenges of implementing ITD projects, including issues related to participant recruitment, data collection, and stakeholder engagement. The project's experiences highlight the importance of adaptability and responsiveness to local conditions and needs in the success of ITD initiatives.

c2c's findings have significant implications for policy and practice, particularly in urban planning, public health, and education. By demonstrating the benefits of intergenerational and interdisciplinary approaches to sustainability education, the project provides a model that can be replicated and scaled up in other contexts.

Building on its successes and lessons learned, the c2c project aims to expand its scope by incorporating more diverse community groups and exploring additional environmental and social themes. Future research will focus on refining ITD methodologies and developing more comprehensive frameworks for assessing the impact of such projects on participants and communities.

The c2c project illustrates the transformative potential of ITD projects that integrate diverse knowledges to address complex societal challenges. By fostering an environment of learning, action, and reflection, c2c contributes to the growing body of knowledge on how ITD approaches can be effectively employed to promote sustainable change and enhance community well-being.

by Johnathan Subendran

Historically, the design discipline has been acknowledged for its integrative capacity in addressing complexity by crafting cohesive and aesthetically appealing perspectives, thereby informing planning, decision-making, and policy (Ovink & Boeijenga, 2018). However, despite its recognized integrative nature, design has not received adequate acknowledgment within the discourse of knowledge integration, particularly within the Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary (ITD) community. With an increasing demand for integrative approaches to address complex spatial development questions, the Resilient Delta initiative, led by a Gluon researcher, developed and applied a design-based interdisciplinary knowledge integration methodology to transform expert knowledge into action-oriented insights to support the complex development ambitions of Maasterras in Doredrecht.

This presentation will illustrate agency of design in the shaping of integrated perspectives, while also addressing the constraints that impede its effectiveness.. Through a detailed examination of a case study, it unveils a series of enabling and disabling factors that influenced the agency of design within the integrative process. These factors encompass disciplinary biases, power dynamics, conventional business paradigms, and siloed administrative structures. These factors underscore thats there are real barriers and bottlenecks in inter and transdisciplinary integration and collaboration.

By shedding light on these challenges, this research emphasizes the necessity of both recongizing the limitations and influences of a design based knowledge integration framework. Moreover it unveils realities of inter- and trandiscplinarity collaboration, and the potential gap from theory to practice. Ultimately this presentation aims to provide critical insights into to the inherent value of a design-based knowledge integration approach in tackling complex development questions, while also fostering awareness of potential disbaling factors that many hinder integration efforts within inter- and trandsciplinary collaboration.

• Henk Ovink, & Jelte Boeijenga. (2018). Too big : Rebuild by Design : a transformative approach to climate change. Nai010 Publishers.

by Irene Wols, Robert-Jan den Haan, Cristina Zaga, Klaasjan Visscher, Mascha C. van der Voort

To navigate complex societal challenges, numerous scholars advocate for the use of transdisciplinary (TD) methods. According to the definition provided by Lang et al. (2012), the complexity of these challenges can be tackled by "differentiating and integrating knowledge from various scientific and societal bodies of knowledge", including academic, experiential, cultural and spiritual ways of knowing. To acquire the competencies necessary to contribute to TD-projects, Transdisciplinary Education (TDE) facilitates their development.

Knowledge integration is widely accepted by scholars to be one of the key components, if not the key component of transdisciplinarity (Pohl et al. 2021), making the ability to integrate different ways of knowing a crucial competency for students, teachers and co-learners in a TD-process. However, knowledge integration is a challenging competency to acquire (Godemann, 2008) and its development can be supported by educational tools. However, developing these tools requires a deep understanding of knowledge integration and most of the time teachers themselves do not know what knowledge integration is or how it may be achieved. While several scholars have attempted to conceptualize the integration process (e.g. Pohl et al., 2021), we do not yet know exactly when knowledge integration occurs and under what conditions. Therefore, we ask: how can the knowledge integration process be characterized in TDE? and what are conditions that influence whether knowledge integration takes place in TDE?

To address these explorative questions, an in-depth qualitative analysis of a single case was conducted. The context of the Transdisciplinary Master Insert (TDMI) program at the University of Twente, winner of the Dutch Higher Education Award 2022, was selected. TDMI is a 30 EC extra-curricular program where students with different disciplinary backgrounds collaborate with societal partners in TD-projects. A mixed method approach was used, including observations during TDMI workshops, interviews with students, stakeholders and staff involved in the TDMI program.

Preliminary findings show that there may be a tendency of co-existence of different ways of knowing and understanding within projects that are intended to be transdisciplinary. In this case, different, potentially contradicting, perspectives exist next to each other without integration taking place. Three potential conditions that influence whether integration or co-existence occurs were identified. The first condition is the extent to which participants feel that they have a stake in the project, as this drives them to either push their own perspective or go along with another perspective. The second condition is, how tangible the developed solution is, bringing out potential disagreements on what the solution(s) may look like. Lastly, the third condition is moments of reflection, in which participants become aware of their own and others ways of knowing.

Next steps in the research are, gathered and analysing further data to validate the findings thus far and potentially identify additional influencing conditions. The final results, presented at the conference, will contribute to a conceptual understanding of knowledge integration in TDE and informs the development of educational tools that stimulate knowledge integration.

by Bianca Vienni Baptista, Sabine Hoffmann

Environmental and societal challenges require responses that integrate a wide range of perspectives from different disciplines (i.e., interdisciplinary integration), as well as from research, policy, and practice (i.e., transdisciplinary integration). Integration in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research is a multidimensional process that involves cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions, in which worldviews come together to approach the complexities of real-world problems.

When integration is embedded in learning and teaching activities, lecturers are confronted with the challenge of teaching the theories, concepts, methods, and tools of integration at the interface of science, practice, and/or policy. They also coach and guide students to design, plan, and implement their own integration process and generate an integrated output. However, there are few tools that help lecturers to design and implement integration processes and assess the integrated outputs in teaching and learning processes.

In this training we offer an approach coined as integrative teaching and learning, to support lecturers and trainers into how to integrate integration in their courses. Elaborating on the concept of integrative teaching, we present practical lessons from a master’s course titled “Integration in Science, Policy and Practice: Inter- and Transdisciplinary Concepts, Methods, Tools” that is offered within the master’s program “Environmental Sciences” at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). We use case studies to offer students the opportunity to explore the theories, concepts, methods, and tools of integration in a hands-on experimental setting. The aim is for students to systematically analyze and cross-compare these cases and critically reflect on the experienced challenges and opportunities in designing, planning, and implementing their own integration process and generating a final integrated output based on their consolidated analysis and comparison.

To approach integrative teaching and learning successfully, we applied different strategies that we will explore together with participants in this training:

• methods and tools of integration applied to case studies,

• reflection on the challenges and opportunities in designing, planning and implementing an integration process with students and generating an integrated output.

• personal teaching and learning journal with individual reflections on the group work and the opportunities students and lecturers experience in bringing their different perspectives together and developing a shared perspective as a group. Participants will be invited to use a teaching and learning journal to adapt their own courses into integrative formats.

Outline of the training (90 minutes)

1. Welcome and Introduction (10 min.)

2. Input by the convenors on the concept of integrative teaching and learning and how to integrate integration into teaching and learning formats. This will be accompanied by an overview of (i) concepts of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration across different scientific communities, (ii) methods and tools of integration and (iii) researchers’ roles in integration processes at the interface between science, policy and practice. (30 min.)

3. Teaching and Learning Journal: based on a template provided by the convenors, participants will reflect on integration in teaching and learning contexts. Building on the input provided by the convenors, participants will use their journal to design and implement how to restructure their course to account for integration (20 minutes). A group discussion will follow to enrich the exchange (20 minutes).

4. Wrap-up and final feedback (10 min.)

References

• Hoffmann, S., Deutsch, L., Klein, J. T. & O’Rourke, M. (2022). Integrate the integrators! A

• call for establishing academic careers for integration experts. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9, 147. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01138-z

• Vienni-Baptista B, Hoffmann S. forthcoming. Integrative Teaching and Learning in Szostak

• R, ed. Elgar Handbook of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Administration.

• Vienni-Baptista B, Klein JT. 2022. Institutionalizing Interdisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity.

• Collaboration across Cultures and Communities. Routledge.

by Rianne van Lambalgen, Ioanna Lykourentzou, Fieke Sluijs

This presentation illustrates an intelligent tutoring system-prototype which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance interdisciplinary student collaboration. We present the methodology and system, as well as its potential application to the DaVinci Project, a Bachelor honors course where students work in teams on a transdisciplinary research project.

Theoretical Framework

Teachers can facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration in student teams using various approaches, but it is important that they apply a structured approach (van den Beemt et.al., 2020). However, coaching interdisciplinary teams can be demanding and the teacher has limited amount of time to facilitate the team. An automated method and tool can help students anytime, anywhere, and in this way democratize and personalize interdisciplinary education even further. However, there is little research available on supporting interdisciplinary teams using AI-methods, with most current research focusing on other collaborative settings such as crowdsourcing or business (see Zhou et al, 2018).

Intelligent Tutoring system

In this project, we aim to address aspects of team performance, using Tuckman’s theory that identifies different stages of team performance (Tuckman, 2001) This is relevant during the interdisciplinary problem solving process, in case of creating interdisciplinary teams (forming), but also when students need to address their frictions for epistemic stability (Horn et.al., 2022). Through the methodology and accompanying tool, we aim to encourage functional disagreement as defined by Horn et.al. (2022) by addressing misunderstanding, disagreement and conflict.

The proposed methodology and digital coach will be applied to enable students to learn from each other during the interdisciplinary life cycle. The tool will support teams on two crucial elements of their collaboration, i) team formation, where it will use optimization algorithms to match students from different disciplines into harmonious teams, and ii) collaboration, where it will use generative-AI to coach those teams have more effective conversations about their disciplinary perspectives.

Prototype

In this presentation we will present an overview of the methodology and a prototype of the intelligent tutoring system, and present a case study of its application in the DaVinci Project. We evaluate the use of this prototype in forming multidisciplinary groups for transdisciplinary teamwork and we assess how the students can benefit in their interdisciplinary conversation from support through Generative-AI and what important properties should be added to the intelligent tutoring system to encourage constructive conflict. Finally we will reflect on how the system can be used to mobilize the role of the teacher as coach to facilitate interdisciplinary learning.

References

• Van den Beemt, A., MacLeod, M., Van der Veen, J., Van de Ven, A., Van Baalen, S., Klaassen, R., & Boon, M. (2020). Interdisciplinary engineering education: A review of vision, teaching, and support. Journal of engineering education, 109(3), 508-555.

• Horn, A., Urias, E., & Zweekhorst, M. (2022, September 15). Epistemic stability and epistemic adaptability: interdisciplinary knowledge integration competencies for complex sustainability issues. Sustainability Science, 17, 1959–1976.

• Tuckman, B. W. (2001). Developmental sequence in small groups. Group Facilitation, (3), 66.

• S. Zhou, M. Valentine, and M. S. Bernstein, “In search of the Dream Team: Temporally constrained multi-armed bandits for identifying effective team structures,” 2018, doi: 10.1145/3173574.3173682

by Tigran Keryan, Vardan Asatryan, Karlen Khachatryan, Verena Radinger-Peer

Aquatic ecosystems play a crucial role in global well-being, providing essential services such as drinking and irrigation water, food, livelihoods, and recreational opportunities. However, these ecosystems are under threat from climate change and anthropogenic pressure, leading to a decline in their services. Armenian aquatic ecosystems, in particular, have a high vulnerability due to the dense population, lack of water treatment plants, and increased water demands from agriculture. These circumstances coupled with climate change increase negative impacts on local communities and the environment of Armenia. Urgent actions are required to establish sustainable aquatic ecosystem management practices. For this purpose, a comprehensive understanding and assessment of ecosystem services (ES) are necessary. Nevertheless, this task is complex given the diverse perspectives of various stakeholders involved in their valuation and management of aquatic ecosystems. To address these challenges, there is a critical need for the integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines and practical knowledge from local community members. Moreover, the traditional use of ES and local stakeholders' participation in decision-making processes are needed to facilitate the implementation of place-based strategies for sustainable aquatic ecosystem management.

In the frame of the EcoServ (Ecosystem Services Assessment through a Participatory Approach for Sustainable Water Resources Management in Armenia) project, we elaborate a participatory approach that is rooted in the inter- and transdisciplinary methodology where locals actively participate in research project co-design, co-implementation, systematic observations and evaluation to bridge this gap. Our contribution addresses three key research questions: 1) What participatory approaches are evident in scholarly literature for valuing aquatic ecosystem services? and 2) What are the challenges and benefits of engaging citizens in aquatic ecosystem services assessment? 3) How can these participatory approaches be applied to the Armenian context? Our study is based on a systematic literature review, based on which a conceptual framework and methodological approach for participatory approaches in the ES assessment of Armenian aquatic ecosystems is elaborated. The framework will be tested in the summer of 2024 on the EcoServ project case study areas comprising stakeholder workshops, teacher workshops, as well as transdisciplinary case studies with the students and university teachers from different disciplines together with local stakeholders.

This research contributes to the broader discourse on aquatic ecosystem management and services assessment with participatory approaches in the Armenian context. At the same time, it critically examines varying stakeholder perspectives on participation in project implementation and decision-making processes for sustainable governance of aquatic ecosystems.

by Irma Arts, Annemarie Horn, Andra-Ioana Horcea-Milcu, Ine Dorresteijn

Transformative, transdisciplinary research aims to integrate scientific inquiry and societal impact by working across disciplines and with non-academic partners. The transdisciplinary research (TDR) process is often divided into three phases: a) problem identification and framing; b) co-creation of (solution-oriented and transferable) knowledge; and c) implementation and integration (Lang et al. 2012; Lawrence et al. 2022). Horcea-Milcu, Leventon and Lang (2022) add an additional phase, phase 0, at the beginning of the project, focused on building collaboration and understanding the (case study) context.

Phase 0 can be seen as building the preconditions to start a TDR project, for which the framework developed three principles: 1) selecting the case study based on content and process criteria; 2) understanding the case study context from a TDR perspective, including reflective discussions to understand the perceptions, expectations and priorities of partners; and 2) fostering premises for coming together by managing expectations, breaking boundaries and negotiating goals (Horcea-Milcu, Leventon, and Lang 2022). In practice however, transdisciplinary projects are often messy and non-linear, making designing and implementing this first stage of the process challenging.

In this workshop we will explore this first phase of the TDR process. We will start the workshop with an introduction to the guiding principles for phase 0 of TDR enriched with some examples from practice from two TDR projects from different national contexts. This will be followed by an interactive timeline activity based on a workshop that we conducted in the WildlifeNL project to better understand the choices that were made in the early stages and how those shaped the implementation and collaboration later in the project. In line with the joint effort of undertaking TDR, we will aim to include one of the non-academic partners in the WildlifeNL consortium to join the session to share experiences from their perspective.

The goals of the workshop are:

• Exchange experiences and learn from each other; inspire participants to devote attention to phase 0 and provide handles on how this can be done in running and how it can be included in design of future projects.

• Jointly reflect on experiences – challenges and strategies - with phase 0 to identify recurring patterns that help us distill generalizable lessons for the design and implementation of early stages of TDR.

• Explore possibilities to collaborate as organizers and participants in reporting those lessons, for example in a joint publication or special issue.

The workshop will be structured in three parts:

1. Introduction to Phase 0 and two examples of TDR projects, WildlifeNL & The Leverage Point project (20 min).

WildlifeNL is a TDR project that is dedicated to transitioning to a wildlife management system that enables low-conflict coexistence between humans and large mammals in the Netherlands. It brings together eighteen partners, including researchers from different disciplines and institutions and societal parties, such as nature conservation organizations, hunting association and farmers organization. WildlifeNL was deliberately designed with extensive time and resources allocated to phase 0 to deal with the anticipated diversity of knowledge and views represented in the consortium.

The Leverage Points project had a transdisciplinary case study dedicated to supporting and enabling sustainability-transformation processes in Southern Transylvania by identifying leverage points and amplifying beyond the local scale. A group of 15 researchers from Leuphana University Lueneburg sought to increase the impact of sustainability initiatives led by 32 local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Phase 0 lasted for ten months and helped to transition from a mere proposal that aimed at transdisciplinarity to a set-up ready for transdisciplinary collaboration.

2. Interactive timeline visualization (50 min)

In groups, participants will visualize a timeline of a TDR process based on their experiences from running projects, past projects, or projects that they are currently developing. We will focus on design choices in the early phases of the projects, considering the process from project idea to kick-off. In particular, we will provide guiding questions to discuss (1) project goal setting; (2) case selection; (3) consortium composition; and (4) project governance in the design and early implementation stages. In doing so, we aim to identify both challenges and strategies that participants deployed to overcome them.

The workshop will center around a physical timeline in the form of a string that we will span across the room. Participants will first collect, exchange and formulate their experiences in small groups, writing down challenges and strategies relating to the four themes mentioned above on four different colours paper. As a next step, the participants will hang their insights on the timeline to arrange them from project idea to kick-off.

3. Joint wrap-up and reflection (20 min)

At the end of the session, we will engage in a plenary discussion and wrap-up with all participants by looking at and walking along the timeline. The aim is to explore whether we can distill general patterns of repeatedly recurring challenges and approaches to deal with those challenges in the early stages of TDR. We will discuss whether some or all participants are interested in jointly reporting our experiences with early stages of TDR, for instance in a joint publication or special issue.

References

• Horcea-Milcu, Andra-Ioana, Julia Leventon, and Daniel J. Lang. 2022. ‘Making Transdisciplinarity Happen: Phase 0, or before the Beginning’. Environmental Science & Policy 136 (October): 187–97.

• Lang, Daniel J., Arnim Wiek, Matthias Bergmann, Michael Stauffacher, Pim Martens, Peter Moll, Mark Swilling, and Christopher J. Thomas. 2012. ‘Transdisciplinary Research in Sustainability Science: Practice, Principles, and Challenges’. Sustainability Science 7 (1): 25–43.

• Lawrence, Mark G., Stephen Williams, Patrizia Nanz, and Ortwin Renn. 2022. ‘Characteristics, Potentials, and Challenges of Transdisciplinary Research’. One Earth 5 (1): 44–61.

by Yasuhisa Kondo, Hideyuki Ōnishi, Yoko Iwamoto, Ui Ikeuchi, Ken'ichiro Nakashima

Interculturality refers to ‘the relations that exist between culturally diverse human groups in a given society’. This concept is applicable to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects because they consist of expert members from diverse fields of research with different terminologies, values for evaluation, and ways of thinking. Therefore, we should address interculturality for better directions of inter- and transdisciplinary projects, particularly when cognitive or epistemological discrepancies exist among project members. Here, we show the results of in-project participatory observation and action research in two large-scale interdisciplinary projects on the evolution and dispersal of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and discuss how interculturality works for better collaboration.

The first case was the Cultural History of PaleoAsia project (Fiscal year 2016–2020), which aimed to understand the distinct patterns in the formation of modern human cultures across Asia. More than 50 researchers, including archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, mathematical biologists, and palaeoenvironmental scientists, collaborated in this project. As the project progressed, the members found it difficult to share key concepts such as culture, environment, and technology with them. Therefore, we attempted to span conceptual and cultural boundaries among the different domains involved by applying lexical analysis, network graphs, and questionnaire surveys. First, a lexical analysis of the full text of the project’s conference proceedings, annual reports, and website revealed that the term ‘culture’ was used in the context of materials (e.g. lithic culture, ceramic culture, etc.), geography (e.g. cultural zones), temporality (e.g. Aurignacian culture) and dynamics (e.g. cultural ecology). Second, the progress of interdisciplinary co-authorship was monitored through a network graph analysis of conference proceedings; the number of co-authors was high in the archaeology groups and low in the cultural anthropology group. Third, a questionnaire survey (N=52) revealed that cultural anthropologists prefer single authorships over other researchers. Regarding the fundamental concept of culture, 70% of the archaeologists chose’ behaviour. Among cultural anthropologists and mathematical biologists, there was no poll for ‘materials’, while the numbers for ‘behaviour’ and ‘information’ were almost equal. Based on this observation, we facilitated scholarly communication among researchers with different values and thoughts for better collaboration.

The second case was the Out of Eurasia project (FY 2019–2023), which conducted an integrative historical science of the human dispersal and cultural development out of Eurasia, namely, the Japanese archipelago, North and South Americas, and Oceania, with an involvement of more than 80 researchers in seven research groups ranging from archaeology, arts, ethnology, neurobiology, genomics, and informatics. The initiative aims to foster the creation of a new academic discipline, ‘Integrative Human History’, beyond traditional interdisciplinary approaches, by encouraging knowledge exchanges between diverse fields to transcend existing academic boundaries. One of the authors (Ōnishi) was principal investigator of an ethnology group and conducted a network analysis of joint research relationship among participating members in terms of academic specialty, role, and research method. The resultant graphs revealed the increasing magnitude of the interdisciplinary interactions. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a shift to online meetings, the initiative facilitated meaningful discussions across fields with a notable effort to understand and engage with other disciplines that collectively contribute to the project's goals. This study concludes that the initiative succeeded in promoting interdisciplinary dialogue, contributing to the construction of an integrative approach to human history.

by Ella Miodownik, Amelia Konstanze Peterson

The London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) was founded to offer new models of learning that focus on the teaching and combination of diverse disciplines and methods, to further capabilities to tackle complex problems. Alongside “BASc” (Bachelor’s in Arts and Sciences) and “MASc” (Master’s in Arts and Sciences) degrees, LIS has been engaged in developing short courses for professional learners. The first of these, now called Cross-Functional Leadership, came about through a partnership with the Leadership Academies of the U.K. National Health Service (NHS), and was created to prepare professional managers and clinicians working on increasing integration across domains of Health and Social Care. The Cross-Functional Leadership course has since developed into an open-cohort programme with participants in management roles across the private, public and third sectors.

A key intention of the course design is to introduce theoretical concepts that can support more integrated working, in practical ways that are accessible and usable for professional actors in the course of fast-paced daily work. Feedback from participants has highlighted the hunger for ways to manage the conceptual and epistemological challenges that come with contemporary knowledge work that is inherently inter- and transdisciplinary, yet rarely recognised as such.

This session would offer an overview and taster of the content of the course and invite critical academic scrutiny and shared learning. This session speaks directly to the theme of growing capacity for inter- and transdisciplinarity, by illustrating what this capacity-building can look like and creating a space for inter- and transdisciplinary academics to discuss our special role in educating knowledge actors working outside of universities.

by Helena Müller, Silke Kleihauer

The most pressing research topics of our time are too complex for a single discipline to tackle. This also holds true for sustainable development – the topic of a 5-year transdisciplinary transformative research project at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (2018-2022). Yet, we experienced issues of e.g., problem framing, mental models, and prejudices against other disciplines that hampered our interdisciplinary collaboration and led to frustration. From a collective identification of ‘pain points’, to a cross impact analysis of influencing factors and team workshops, we administered different formats to help address the arising issues. Here, two main topics of “attitude” and “leadership” emerged. From there, based on the latest state of the art in science of cross-disciplinary team science, we developed key criteria for successful interdisciplinary collaboration. These encompass an interplay of a) three dimensions (epistemic, social, and psychological) and b) three levels (person, team, university). This framework not only underlines the importance of a holistic approach to knowledge integration, but also explicitly recognizes the role of social and psychological elements in interdisciplinary collaboration. In our case, those were less accessible – also due to remote working during the COVID19-pandemic. This perspective helped us in understanding the given issues and guided us through the remaining time of the project, opening new ways of thinking and interacting. By the end of the project, we administered an online survey among the team members to gather relevant learnings for future projects. The survey revealed that most team members were newcomers to the field of transdisciplinary transformative research and that conflict management, rules of decision-making, and active reflection of team processes could have been improved. However, overall, team members indicated a pronounced psychological safety in the subgroups. With these insights, we would like to share our experiences and stimulate a discussion on how to actively shape inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration and how to sensitize team members for this task.

by Morten Strömme

Contributors: Morten Strömme, Jasper ter Schegget, Linda de Greef, Students and Teaching Assistants from the minor Science Technology & Innovation: Biomimicry,

Keywords: Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, Technical Education, Maker Culture, Inner Development Goals, Student Experiences, publications

Abstract

This session introduces attendees to several aspects of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies’ Education Lab through three showcases: a Mini-Makerspace, a Literature Corner, and the Transition Makers Toolbox. By setting up one stage with three areas — each reflecting different facets of our approach to interdisciplinary education — we showcase the theoretical underpinnings, student experiences, and personal development tools. Our goal is to offer a comprehensive perspective on educational innovation, enabling participants to explore each element within a shared and freely accessible area of the conference floor. This informal experience aims to bridge theoretical insights with practical examples, allowing for an open dialogue on effective education strategies and inter- and transdisciplinary initiatives.

Session Design

We can be present for up to three days of the conference, highlighting a different area during each of the daily lunch breaks. All areas will be open for exploration and conversation throughout the conference.

Miniature Makerspace

Presenting Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects from the minor ST&I: Biomimicry, where students utilize insights from nature to develop technological solutions by constructing bio-inspired prototypes within the UvA Makerspace. The minor, welcoming students from natural sciences, engineering, and related disciplines, employs both Design Thinking and Open Inquiry education methods to balance freedom with structure in the student design process.

The Open Inquiry aspect represents a collaborative effort between the University of Amsterdam, TU Eindhoven, Amsterdam University College and Leiden University, as part of a larger initiative led by Dr. Forrest Bradbury. Supported by a significant subsidy from DUS-I/SURF, this approach emphasizes giving students considerable autonomy in their projects, encouraging them to engage deeply with every stage of the empirical research cycle. This model aims to enhance critical thinking, self-efficacy, and an understanding of the scientific process, allowing students to create their own learning experiences while still adhering to the learning goals. We will also offer practical solutions for organising this type of education without overburdening the education staff.

IIS Literature Corner

We aim to have an open and informal conversation with the attendants, starting off from the expertise we’ve developed and brought together in a variety of IIS publications, that ground all our initiatives educational theories. These books include:

• Meaningful Assessment in Interdisciplinary Education: A Practical Handbook for University Teachers (2021)
  This handbook calls for an assessment strategy with greater emphasis on assessment for and as learning, focusing on giving powerful feedback and using authentic assessment tasks aligned with intended learning outcomes. It provides inspiring examples of assessing integration, collaboration, reflection, and critical thinking.

• Designing Interdisciplinary Education: A Practical Handbook for University Teachers (2017)
  This guide offers practical advice for university teachers who want to develop, implement, and sustain interdisciplinary courses and programs. It covers topics like formulating interdisciplinary learning outcomes, embedding integration in program design, engaging faculty, and exploring teaching philosophies and methods.

• Interdisciplinary Learning Activities (2018)
  This publication contains concrete examples of interdisciplinary learning activities that encourage students to step across disciplinary boundaries. It provides inspiration for developing service-learning courses, honors programs, and other interdisciplinary initiatives.

Transition Makers Toolbox Area:

Through the innovative use of our specially designed Conversation Starter cards, attendants will experience the power of introspective dialogue and collaborative exploration first-hand. Whether they’re a seasoned educator or new to the concept of Inner Development Goals (IDGs), participants will discover inspiring ways to ignite enthusiasm and foster deep, meaningful growth in their students with the Transition Makers Toolbox.

These areas combined create an environment for attendees to engage with students, teachers, and the education developers from the IIS and UvA Science Faculty, facilitating an open exchange of ideas and strategies for integrating several interdisciplinary approaches.

Flexibility and Scalability: Recognizing the varying nature of conference spaces, our setup is designed to be adaptable. We can expand to include a comprehensive array of educational materials or condense it to fit smaller spaces without sacrificing content quality.

by Candace Bloomquist, Leah Georges

Following Einstein's observation that "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them," there is an urgent need for collaborative problem-solving across diverse disciplines, especially in the face of complex global challenges. This necessitates the adoption of new leadership practices to transform both thinking processes and approaches to address these intricate problems. Aligned with the theme of the ITD conference on broadening and deepening education and training in inter- and transdisciplinarity, and focusing on guiding principles for teacher professionalization in this context, we will present our interdisciplinary leadership development model. This framework aims to teach integrative thinking and collaboration across differences, nurturing leaders capable of navigating the complexities of the evolving global landscape.

The core focus of our interdisciplinary leadership development model is to prepare practitioner-scholars to tackle complex issues in today's global context. Over the past 12 years, we have refined this model within our EdD in Interdisciplinary Leadership Program. Tailored for graduate education, the model is rooted in foundational learning theories, particularly andragogy, recognizing the distinct characteristics of adult learners. We contend that successful interdisciplinary collaboration requires more than the mere convergence of individuals from various disciplines; it demands a nuanced, situated mindset practiced by individuals who understand the emergent nature of collaboration across differences. Drawing on leadership-as-practice perspectives, our model emphasizes viewing interdisciplinarity as a holistic concept, transcending individual focus to consider collective and systemic dimensions of leadership development.

Our presentation will address the current lack of clarity within the leadership literature on interdisciplinarity. By exploring the interdisciplinary roots of leadership, our model enriches leadership development by fostering capabilities to address real-world complexities. We will present the interdisciplinary leadership model as a tapestry, intricately weaving together and cultivating leadership identities, practices, and outcomes through intentional mission, structure, curriculum, and instructional strategies. The model underscores the need for educators to move beyond reductionist views of leadership and embrace an emergent, process-oriented approach. Key components include diverse student cohorts, critical reflection across coursework, using an andragogical approach to student engagement, and emphasizing the importance of high-quality teaching and the recruitment and retention of faculty with diverse backgrounds. Our presentation will provide practical insights and examples for scholars and educators interested in implementing the interdisciplinary leadership development model.

by Astha Bhatta, Floortje d'Hont, Nely Gamez Mokay, BinBin Jiang Pearce, Jill Slinger, Heleen Vreugdenhil

What is the role of transdisciplinary research and learning in policy processes for navigating societal challenges? This session guides the complex terrain where transdisciplinarity converges with policy by clarifying, questioning, and suggesting transdisciplinary approaches which would support a co-productive model of science-policy practice.

In our session, we discuss with the researchers who have been or currently involved in four transdisciplinary research projects which include the participation of one or more of the four “policy cultures” for decision making (Elzinga, 1996). Most of these projects are PhD projects which had the freedom to explore innovative forms of collaboration in science-policy practice, while being embedded in an academic environment with a longstanding tradition of participatory policy analysis, with actors from diverse policy cultures. Through the exploration of the stories from each of the researchers in domains spanning from the co-design of coastal water management, energy citizenship, social business models for coastal landscapes and living labs, we discuss the existing frameworks for understanding the various types of science-policy practices as they relate to transdisciplinary research. We reflect on our how the latest approaches are pioneering in this space and on what still might be missing. We also welcome the audience to share their experiences in this endeavour. The aim of the session is to collectively identify next steps in addressing the societal challenges that require a rethinking of our collective values and goals for the future. The discussion will build on existing models on the role of transdisciplinary research in science-policy practices. We will be building on the distinction between “type one” and “type two” transdisciplinary research (Pohl, 2008) which is either primarily focused on reorganizing knowledge or facilitates a co-production of knowledge between various ‘policy cultures’ (Elzinga and Jamison, 1995). We will also be referring to the delineation between “linear” and a “co-productive” model of science-policy practices (Maas et al., 2022). This distinction stems from the context of interaction and result in different expectations, competencies needed by the researchers involved.

The panel starts with a reflection on the interaction between transdisciplinary research and the policy processes. We then take stock of where the arena of interaction is currently and where it needs to go in order to more effectively contribute to societal challenges, in particular related to those where social, ecological and technological systems converge.

The discourse continues with a comprehensive exploration of policy-spanning concepts and methods to inform transdisciplinary research. The panellists will dissect how policy concepts can be employed as tools, methods, and frameworks within transdisciplinary settings and how transdisciplinary approaches can be adapted for policy arenas.

Grounded in the overarching theme of enhancing theoretical foundations, this panel invites participants to engage in a transformative dialogue, reshaping our perceptions, challenging assumptions, and forging new paths at the intersection of transdisciplinarity and policy. Join us as we embark on a journey through the Looking Glass, envisioning a future where theory becomes the bedrock for innovative, collaborative, and impactful research endeavours.

Description

Panel discussion of four participants and a moderator. We will open with a brief 5-minute introduction. Each participant will give a 3-5 min introduction of their project before we continue with a discussion. The last 15 minutes of the session will be reserved for question-and-answer session. We will need around six chairs and two microphones if the room is too big.

Suggested stream topic for panel: 1. Enhancing the theoretical foundations of inter- and transdisciplinary (from a policy perspective)

Questions for the panel:

• What was the context and rationale of each of the TD projects and how are they positioned between transdisciplinary research and policy objectives?

• How did you apply policy concepts and methods in a transdisciplinary setting and vice versa?

• What implications do you think TD has for policy and vice versa?

• What can we learn from policy research (methods/concepts) for transdisciplinary settings?

• In your role as a pioneering researcher in the intersection of these fields, where do you see the main contribution of your work in reconsidering the role of diverse actors in society in both bottom-up and top-down decision-making?

Key readings:

• Pohl, C. (2008). From science to policy through transdisciplinary research. Environmental Science & Policy, 11(1), 46–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2007.06.001

• Maas, T. Y., Pauwelussen, A., & Turnhout, E. (2022). Co-producing the science–policy interface: Towards common but differentiated responsibilities. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 93. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01108-5

by Johnathan Subendran, Anne Bruggen, Chuma Mbambo-Lado, Nikki Brand

In an era marked by pandemics, escalating sea levels, and growing wealth disparity, innovative solutions are needed now more than ever, which requires a new and radical approach to understanding and addressing complex societal problems. Since it is unlikely that these problems can be tackled by experts alone, it is worthwhile to seek a radical new approach that puts integration expertise at center stage. To accelerate collaborative learning across different forms of expertise, the Resilient Delta initiative is experimenting with the gluon researcher,, a new and complementary role in the knowledge ecosystem. The mission of the ‘gluon approach’ is to help build shared understandings across diverse perspectives and mobilize transformative learning through integrative leadership, diversification of academic projects, collective validation, and conscious integration of knowledge in a collaborative learning setting. To do so, the gluon researcher tailor-makes an integrative approach for different types of knowledge consortia based on the combination of ITD literature with engineering and design-thinking. This exhibition presents how the gluon approach has been operationalized so far (in consortia such as ReDesigning Deltas, Red & Blue, SPRING, Resilience on the Labour Market and JUST GREEN) and what the gluon does through a diverse range of mediums such as posters, digital animation, and various publication formats. This is also an opportunity to launch the limited booklet series's first issue on the gluon researcher to the ITD community and the diverse integration experts in it.

by Selin Dilli, Jan Pieter Beetz, Stefanie Beyens, Merve Burnazoglu

Format of the Session:
Our session will include short presentations of three chapters (10x3=30 minutes presentation time in total) of a new PPE textbook, co-edited by Jan Pieter Beetz and Selin Dilli, followed with feedback, questions and a general discussion (30 minutes for general discussion). We are keen to hear feedback from interdisciplinary and educational experts on our textbook.

The title of the presentations in the session are:

• Presentation 1. Chapter 2: Interdisciplinary Research Process: How to systematically analyze PPE challenge? (Jan Pieter Beetz)

• Presentation 2. Chapter 4: Closing the Gender Equality at Work: How does the diversity of women's work matter? (Selin Dilli)

• Presentation 3. Chapter 5: Democracy in Crisis: Is polarization a problem? (Stefanie Beyens)

Content of the Session:

Despite the growing education initiatives on interdisciplinarity between the humanities and social sciences, such as the bachelors (Philosophy Politics and Economics (PPE)), IoS minor and UU-wide courses, teaching materials tailored to interdisciplinary programmes such as PPE are still missing. There are two major issues. First, so far, the standard textbooks on interdisciplinary research and education provide a general framework. Yet, these models of interdisciplinarity remain rather universal models and abstract for students and ‘disciplinary’ teachers with limited experience teaching interdisciplinary courses. For example, the distinction between the last two stages of interdisciplinarity - finding common ground and integration - remains blurry and as a result, is often used interchangeably both in the reference books as well as in our teaching practices. Second, while the literature provides integration tools on how to integrate different disciplines, such as redefinition, transformation or extension, they remain inaccessible without real-life application to PPE related themes. The few standard textbooks on interdisciplinarity are skewed towards with examples from natural sciences and social sciences (e.g, Repko, Szostak and Buchberger 2020; Menken and Keestra 2016), which makes it less suitable for the purpose of PPE like studies drawing upon closely related, yet distinct disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

This co-edited textbook aims to address these issues. The textbook has three goals:

1. Offer a more simplified and student friendly approach to interdisciplinarity for PPE+ Programmes. In the introduction of the book, we will first provide an innovative interdisciplinary framework. The current literature continues to firmly rely on Repko’s groundbreaking work. However, this approach remains suboptimal for PPE teaching purposes. We present a six-step interdisciplinary research method to systematically integrate insights, while addressing challenges particular to PPE like programs. After presenting this framework, each chapter will demonstrate this approach when applied to PPE related research themes, such as democracy, inequality, and sustainability.

2. Fill the dearth of materials for PPE education. On the one hand, most interdisciplinary textbooks are not tailored to the specifics of PPE programs with their focus on the humanities and social sciences as well as normative and empirical insights. On the other hand, one of the few PPE texts – the handbook on Philosophy Politics and Economics (Melenovsky, 2022) – introduces topics relevant to PPE students but it is silent on the challenges of interdisciplinarity. Moreover, this reference book seems more aimed at advanced students and fellow scholars rather than bachelor students. By bringing interdisciplinary education and PPE strands together, our goal is to address an important gap in the interdisciplinary PPE education.

3. Provide an interdisciplinary teaching book that properly represents the humanities, in particular disciplines such as history and philosophy. As touched upon above, the dominant textbooks on interdisciplinarity remain skewed towards examples from natural sciences and social sciences (e.g, Repko, Szostak and Buchberger 2020; Menken and Keestra 2016). We aim to address this gap in the literature. The book should therefore not only be of interest to PPE educational programmes but also have potential in other interdisciplinary studies that are/will be set up in the humanities and social sciences, such as UCU and PPLE.

Presentation 1:

This presentation introduces our six-step approach to interdisciplinary analysis of societal problems. The chapter aims to walk students through the interdisciplinary research process without requiring any additional resources. In addition, it lays the foundation for the subsequent applications in the thematic chapters (Chapters 3-10). The six steps are: (1) problem definition; (2) disciplinary analysis; (3) perspective taking (4) analyzing common ground; (5) integrating insights; and (6) a comprehensive understanding. We built upon the groundbreaking work of scholars in interdisciplinary studies (e.g. Repko and Szotsak 2016; Repko et al. 2017; Menken and Keestra 2016), however we simplify the existing approach for a tailored problem-driven PPE+ research.

Presentation 2:

Current economic approaches to gender equality primarily focus on women's wage labor, offering limited insights into less 'traditional' forms of work women engaged historically that continues to be relevant globally today. To develop a more comprehensive definition of women’s work, we integrate the disciplines of economics and history, using ‘redefinition’ as an integration technique to define women’s work. This involves considering not only women’s wage work but also their contributions in family businesses as co-workers and business owners where they historically contributed to the economy and continue to do so globally today.

Presentation 3:

This chapter aims to answer these questions through an interdisciplinary approach integrating research from political science and political philosophy. While both literatures offer unique insights into divided democracies, as lone disciplines both also face important limitations. Comparative and quantitative political science research provides an empirically rich description of polarization across various contexts and the impacts of such trends on public attitudes and satisfaction with democracy. However, empirical work often adopts a minimal conception of democracy, which does not always account for the full range of democratic values we may find important. Philosophical research, alternatively, provides a deeper normative account of democracy and how it relates to concepts of difference, disagreement, and identity. By operating at a high level of abstraction, however, this work rarely engages with issues of polarization or the dynamics of party politics. By integrating the insights of both disciplines, the chapter aims to offer a more sophisticated discussion of polarization's relationship to democracy. Combining empirical and normative strands of research, it distinguishes between polarisation based on political preferences on the one hand, and polarisation based on social identity on the other. Through multiple integration techniques, it analyses the implications of these different forms of polarization, arguing that they are likely to have very different consequences for democratic values.

by Florence Horicks, Teodora Lalova-Spinks, Silke Léonard, Nadine Boesten

Patient participation in health research is growing, and the experiential knowledge of patients helps to shed light on their perspectives and preferences. In the context of cancer, challenges they face extend beyond pathology and treatment to encompass physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs. The improvement of treatments and life expectancy brings new challenges similar to chronic diseases. It is therefore of societal interest to tackle the quality of life aspects throughout the cancer journey of some 18 million new patients per year. In this context, the overall objective of the research project "Symphony-of-Us" is to question what matters to patients, to conceptualize and improve the Patient Value in oncology research. Taking a transdisciplinary approach, the "Symphony-of-Us" project aims to promote cancer patient’s participation at all stages of research.

We have set up and trained a team of patient-researchers through a methodological process allowing the involvement of the people concerned and their experiential knowledge mobilization in quality of life-related research in oncology. The objective of this process was threefold: 1) build a transdisciplinary research team and ensure its member’s true engagement; 2) build a common language and a shared knowledge base necessary for the implementation of participatory research; 3) launch a participatory approach based on a relationship of mutual trust.

This process was built over +/- 3-months including a recruitment phase combining information, self-selection, and co-construction of the patient-researcher group, a training phase, and an evaluation phase. The training phase aims at providing the necessary tools to patient-researchers to acquire theoretical, practical and legitimacy skills to allow their involvement at all stages of research. The training is built around several modules addressing (1) theoretical aspects of research, the challenges of research on quality of life in oncology; and the transdisciplinary approach; and (2) practical aspects of research applied to the Symphony-of-Us project (co-construction of interview guides, survey forms and conduction of semi-structured interviews). The last part of the process will be devoted to a collective reflection on the research project and its methodological process.

We will present the different stages of building the team of co-researchers and the training as well as the first results of the implementation of this personalized learning process and its ongoing evaluation. We will also provide feedback on the commencement of this transdisciplinary research team.

Participatory research offers new perspectives by combining expert and experiential knowledge, which requires specific modes of organization. Co-research can present many challenges and requires a constant questioning of one's practices and personal posture. There are practical, ethical, and emotional issues involved in the participation of patients. It is therefore necessary to build a solid, committed and mutually trusting team by promoting a reflexive capacity that allows adjustment of the scientific approach and project design. The process presented here is the first step of the Symphony-of-Us project. By exploring the possibility of incorporating patient’s perspectives and multiple stakeholder knowledge in the research questions to define the barriers and levers, we aim at co-building possible future outlines while improving Patient Value in oncology research.

by Sebastian Heinen, Katja Bender

Many German non-university research organizations –in particular institutes of the Max Planck society, Fraunhofer society, Leibniz association, and Helmholtz association– have a long history of engaging in some types of collaborative knowledge creation and transdisciplinary research. However, research disciplines and methodologies, organizational approaches as well as individual mindsets differ widely across and within the four organizations and their independent member institutes, making it particularly hard to incentivize research teams to tackle current challenges by co-producing actionable knowledge jointly with practice partners from both the public and the private sector. We take a step back and measure the preferences of scientists in these German key research organizations regarding knowledge co-production and more. Administered online and distributed via internal communication departments, we conducted a discrete choice experiment accompanied by further survey questions. 917 respondents completed our survey. We asked participants to choose one out of two hypothetical research projects characterized by six attributes (funding volume, academic success, societal impact, knowledge transfer, knowledge co-production, and practice partner type), of which most had three levels (low, medium, high). Respondents were randomly allocated into two blocs, both of which were asked to make eight choices. Standard logistic regressions produce highly significant coefficients for virtually almost all attribute levels. Obvious preference rankings were all confirmed (i.e. researchers prefer high over low academic success, ceteris paribus). Contrasting organization-specific sub-samples reveals clear preferential differences between researchers from different research associations, in particular Max Planck vs Fraunhofer, where the former prefer knowledge transfer to the public sector, while the latter are keener to engage in knowledge co-production with the private sector. However, a latent class analysis shows that there are also intricate differences of preferences within research societies, rendering blanket policies to encourage research-practice collaboration too simplistic. Based on the results of our survey we discuss approaches how to foster transdisciplinarity among the thousands of top scientists in German non-university research and to what degree our findings are transferable to other national contexts.

By Guadalupe Peres Cajias

The socio-ecological challenges the world is currently facing demand to innovate our ways to approach, deal and build reality for a more sustainable future. In academic cooperation, development initiatives, and research reflections, transdisciplinarity has been encouraged as an innovative perspective to co-create answers for complex problems through a dialogue between a diversity of academic and non-academic actors. Thus, transdisciplinarity challenges former ways of conducting research and producing knowledge.

In this presentation, I would like to disclose my experience as a first-person action researcher in making sense along with the other actors involved in the process towards transdisciplinarity, within an academic cooperation program for development in Bolivia.

My relation as a researcher with academic actors of other disciplines, and with non-academic actors, with different cultural backgrounds and ways of knowledge production, was decisive for my personal journey to become more engaged, through transdisciplinarity, with the local development of the world of which I’m part.

The data considered for this self-reflective analysis come from 10 personal research notebooks and 30 pictures, taken during the 5-year research period (2017-2022). The analysis revealed how symmetrical interactions and shared experiences among the actors contribute to gradually learning to make sense of transdisciplinarity.

Grounded on this analysis, I would like to present how these two key elements (symmetrical interactions/shared experiences) contributed to building a new sense of being a researcher: "a relational academic" that aims to enhance inter and transdisciplinarity initiatives.

by Merritt Polk, Henrietta Palmer, Elena Raviola

Serious planning problems still persist in Sweden despite years of initiatives targeting their resolution. Such ‘wicked’ problems are characterized by causal complexity often with broad temporal and spatial reach, a high degree of politization and uncertainty, and the involvement of multiple agencies and societal actors. One approach to handling such problems is through discrete platforms and arenas that are designed to enable different forms of collaboration. Given that these arenas are situated between different organizations and decision-making levels, we refer to them here as boundary spaces since they have no one organizational base, but work at the boundaries between different organizations. If boundary spaces are promoted as a viable solution to wicked problems, then we need a better understanding of how they work, especially regarding the dilemmas and tensions that such spaces face. This paper presents a transdisciplinary investigation of the dilemmas that arise in four examples of boundary spaces dealing with wicked problems in Swedish planning on sustainable urban development, safe communities (2 cases), and transport infrastructure. The overall aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how boundary spaces can contribute to sustainable transitions, using an innovative method which we call Learning Dialogues (LD). Through a transdisciplinary analysis of the interview material, the practitioners involved in the cases together reflected with an interdisciplinary team of researchers on the challenges that arose in the boundary spaces as well how they could be addressed. Four LDs were organized around four themes. These include dilemmas arising (1) in the context including places outside and before the boundary room is staged, i.e. in society at large and within the organizations that want to collaborate; (2-3) in the boundary space itself in their relations and processes; and (4) in the zone between the boundary space and the home organization and the surrounding society, where transformation and influence take place. Each LD discussed dilemmas which arose in the boundary spaces within these four themes and, through a variety of workshop methods, reflected upon and exchanged experiences across these four cases. This paper presents the TD design of the overall project, the results of the LD and preliminary results regarding how the LD results can be transformed into different types of pedagogical material that can be used by the participating agencies to increase the effectiveness of their work with wicked problems in different collaborative arenas.

by Gisela J. van der Velden, Christine M. Fox, Janine J. Geerling, Marije Lesterhuis

Humankind is currently facing a large number of global, societal problems, many of which are extremely complex. In order to solve these problems, interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial. Scientific research is riddled with examples of a lack of knowledge due to a lack of diversity in academic research teams, clinical trial participants, laboratory animals and cell lines. Additionally, there is an increasing demand for ethics and methodology of science by life scientists and clinicians.

To address this need and these gaps in our education, an interdisciplinary, six-month program was developed within the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS) of Utrecht University, where students from 16 different life sciences disciplines come together. The Life Sciences & Society program aims to teach students the importance of incorporating the societal perspective into research design, thereby increasing the impact of their work, and really meeting our society’s needs.

The main component of the program is the Capstone project, a transdisciplinary research project into a societal problem from an external partner, forming a bridge between science and society. Parallel to the project, students follow different theoretical modules during which they acquire knowledge about relevant topics, such as History & Philosophy of Life Sciences, Ethics and Research Integrity, Open Science, Diversity Perspectives, and Global & Planetary Health. The structure of the program gives them the unique opportunity to incorporate the new theoretical knowledge and perspectives into their Capstone project and to reflect on their project and methodology within the theoretical modules. The lecturers and teachers are from several schools within the university, giving the students an interdisciplinary perspective on the topics at hand.

The program also includes a series of workshops to train and develop the students’ personal and professional skills, allowing students to progress in their personal development. Students learn about collaboration, intercultural communication, personal working styles and conflict management, to name a few examples.

According to feedback from alumni, the Life Sciences & Society program’s emphasis on personal and professional development along with hands-on experience, was not only beneficial for their personal and professional growth, but also aided them in defining how they wanted to dedicate their careers as a life science professional.

Our study aims to investigate the impact of our program on past students’ professional identity formation. The study will use qualitative research methods, using semi-structured interviews with past participants of the program, one, two, and three years after completion. By exploring the alumni’s views on their role as scientists within society and how the different components of the program may have influenced their professional identity, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of our program. This includes the possible effects the transdisciplinary nature of the program may have on the professional identity of alumni. The information gleaned from the study will be used to improve the curriculum of the program, and additionally, we hope that the findings will inspire other organizations to provide their students with similar opportunities to bridge the gap between academia and society.

by Danielle Naafs, Hee-Youn Lee

Patience and a step-by-step approach are essential for working with students in interdisciplinary and intercultural educational projects. Sounds easy, but how do you do it? In 2016 an intensive collaboration between Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea and Fontys Academy of Creative Economy in Tilburg, the Netherlands started. One-time hackathons and workshops were set up, in which students from different disciplines (eg software - and computer engineering, communication, lifestyle, creativity & trend research) worked together in the Netherlands and South Korea to create digital social design concepts. The concepts focused on improving the quality of life of citizens addressed to the Sustainable Development Goals. Due to the corona pandemic, the physical educational environment was converted into an online educational environment in 2021. Since then stepwise and on ‘a learning-by-doing’ way an online semester programme Living Lab Good Life has been carried out. In this programme working closely together lead to mutual learning and practices, such as the very succesful weekly stand-up meeting between the participating lecturers. Besides, including the reflective principles of the action research methodology appreciative inquiry helped the students to obtain a more collective way of thinking and actions. In a short video (5 - 7 min) we will show our best practices regarding the design principles for an interdisciplinary educational programme and “our boundary-crossing” insights on how to work and learn in it from both lecturer and student perspective.

by Sayed Md Saikh Imtiaz, Jinat Hossain

Societal Problem:

Like most other countries in the global south, there is a significant shortage of quality teachers in primary and secondary schools in Bangladesh. This issue persists because top students often opt against teaching careers due to low pay and societal status associated with the profession. Protissruti Residential School has been established in Bangladesh as a Living Lab School by two Professors of Dhaka University to address the gap of quality education

which is crucial yet often inaccessible to disadvantaged children and orphans. This Living Lab School is committed to exploring new methods for inclusive education, particularly emphasizing gender-transformative practices for sexual and reproductive health, climate adaptation, and sustainability. The focus extends to developing effective strategies for addressing the challenge of quality teachers to engaging high-achieving university students in volunteer teaching roles. The proposed workshop aims to garner support and collaboration from experts in sustainable education to further develop and enhance this pioneering project drawing university students as volunteers for teaching in the schools.

Goal and Objectives:

• To introduce the concept and initiatives of the Living Lab School in Bangladesh.

• To present and discuss three innovative approaches developed through action research: bravemen campaign , campus hero café and captain climate campaign.

• To facilitate knowledge exchange and co-creation of effective approaches for sustainability education through evidence-based learning and contextual insights on how to mobilize volunteer teachers from the university level students in and out of the country.

• To foster collaboration among participants for ongoing support and development of the Living Lab School and similar initiatives in the global south.

Workshop Structure:

Introduction to the Living Lab School:

Overview of the school's mission, vision, and objectives. Highlight the importance of sustainable education and the unique challenges faced by disadvantaged children and orphans in Bangladesh.

Presentation of Innovative Approaches:

• a. Bravemen Campaign: Discuss the objectives and outcomes of this campaign aimed at promoting gender-transformative approaches to sexual and reproductive health education.

• b. Campus Hero Café: Explore the concept and impact of creating a supportive environment for inclusive education through the Campus Hero Café initiative.

• c. Captain Climate Campaign: Present the strategies and results of this campaign focused on climate adaptation and sustainability education.

Interactive Session: Co-creation and Knowledge Exchange:

Engage participants in group discussions to share their own experiences, evidence-based practices, and contextual insights related to sustainability education.

Facilitate co-creation sessions to identify additional effective approaches that can be adopted and tested in the Living Lab School.

Panel Discussion: Lessons Learned and Future Directions:

Invite a panel of experts to share their reflections on the presented approaches and offer recommendations for scaling up and sustaining the impact of the Living Lab School. Encourage dialogue among participants and panelists to explore potential collaborations and support mechanisms.

Conclusion and Next Steps:

Summarize key insights and outcomes from the workshop. Discuss potential avenues for ongoing collaboration and support for the Living Lab School and similar initiatives in Bangladesh and beyond.

Expected Outcomes:

• a. Increased awareness and understanding of innovative approaches to sustainability education.

• b. Enhanced collaboration and knowledge exchange among experts and practitioners.

• c. Identification of new strategies and opportunities for advancing inclusive education and sustainability initiatives in Bangladesh maximizing university level students involvement in school level teaching.

• d. Concrete plans for ongoing support and development of the Living Lab School and its programs.

Conclusion:

The Living Lab School in Bangladesh represents a groundbreaking effort to address the complex challenges of sustainable education for disadvantaged children and orphans. Through this workshop, we aim to harness the collective intelligence and expertise of participants to further enhance and expand the impact of this innovative initiative. Together, we can work towards building a more inclusive and sustainable future for all.

by Toine Pieters

Courses in higher education institutions tend to focus on teaching students about solution spaces: theories and methods that have been accrued to address disciplinary problems and research questions. Research assignments are often integrated into such courses, in which students are challenged to apply the solution space to compatible problem spaces. This educational set-up has proven immensely valuable in passing on the knowledge and tools of a field, and has rightly earned its commonplace presence. However, we also observe that many authentic problems, especially those connected to societal issues like healthy and sustainable urban living, are rarely constrained within disciplinary solution spaces - instead, multidisciplinary research teams are needed to address them. This underscores a need for students to be prepared to effectively participate and learn in such teams, which is increasingly being picked up by universities and policymakers

Living Pasts Exploring Futures is an interdisciplinary co-design course at Utrecht University (UU), the Netherlands, that challenges students from different programmes and faculties to work beyond their own expertise and place acquired knowledge into social context. By combining historical, ecological and socio-cultural data, students develop and design innovative pilot applications in collaboration with societal stakeholders. This goal is purposefully broad, to allow any student enrolled in the course to find an angle of interest within these design boundaries. In the process of community-engaged learning, students learn how to cooperate across disciplinary borders, take charge of their own learning process and experimentally assess the added value of new media and ICT. The course takes place over ten weeks.

by Zowi Vermeire

Over 80 higher education professionals, including rectores magnifici, have signed their name in agreement with a call for a ‘Sigma’ future of higher education in a ScienceGuide article written by Wild and Uijl (2023). These higher education professionals call for more attention for inter- and transdisciplinary education at higher educational institutions in the Netherlands. The critically acclaimed article demonstrates that there is a felt need and urgency to transform disciplinary higher education into (also facilitating) interdisciplinary higher education. However, such needed changes bring challenges for governance structures of universities that are often built on disciplinary traditions. In this research, we have mapped what is felt by interviewing Dutch university employees, including several signees, who are at the forefront of changing educational governance for the benefit of developing and sustaining interdisciplinary education. In these interviews, we ask such ‘frontrunners’ not only about their experiences with the current governance of interdisciplinary education at their university, but also how they would ideally see such governance. We have done a critical discourse analysis of these interviews to map underlying relations of power present in their expressions about governance. To do this, we have used the concept of pedagogical governance, drawing on work by Bernstein (2000), Foucault (1995), and Negri (2000), understanding it as a form of nurturing and disciplining power to develop, sustain and change ways to recognise, value and structure learning. Our results provide insight into:

• different governance structures for interdisciplinary education at Dutch universities

• barriers and opportunities those structures provide for governing interdisciplinary education

• future scenarios for the governance of interdisciplinary education

Though it was neither the aim nor possible to be complete in mapping governance structures at Dutch universities, we have seen how governance structures differ across and within universities and the opportunities and barriers for interdisciplinary education that arise from those differences. Additionally, we have sketched several existing and future concepts for governing interdisciplinary education, which will aid policy makers in making informed decisions about governing interdisciplinary education. We add to existing work on governance concepts (see e.g. Cai & Lönnqvist, 2022; Lindvig, 2022) our pedagogical perspective, which shows how important it is for policy makers and educators to realise how governance choices for interdisciplinary education come with normative ideas about what learning is valued and recognised, and what learning is not.

References

• Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control, and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Rowman & Littlefield.

• Cai, Y., & Lönnqvist, A. (2022). Overcoming the Barriers to Establishing Interdisciplinary Degree Programmes: The Perspective of Managing Organisational Innovation. Higher Education Policy, 35(4), 946–968. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-021-00242-0

• Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Vintage Books.

• Lindvig, K. (2022). Loud and soft voices of interdisciplinarity in higher education. In Configurations of Interdisciplinarity Within Education. Routledge.

• Negri, A. (2000). The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics. U of Minnesota Press.

• Wild, U., & Uijl, S. (2023). Niet alfa, bèta of gamma: Onderwijs van de toekomst is sigma. ScienceGuide. https://www.scienceguide.nl/2023/06/niet-alfa-beta-of-gamma-onderwijs-van-de-toekomst-is-sigma/

by Mattia Gallotti, Jesper Schneider

Interdisciplinary research is an integrative form of scholarship. Since it was institutionalized in education policy, integration has been hailed as the guiding research method of interdisciplinarity. In recent years, important systematic work has been done to distil general criteria for cross-disciplinary collaboration and coordination from successful cases of local research activity and design. However, emphasis on integration as the method through which interdisciplinary outputs are generated has not yet led to codifying the processes and techniques for integrating knowledge in practice.

This is particularly relevant in the context of research assessment tasks, funding allocation and distribution, and science policy. For example, the final report of the UK’s 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) concluded that a codified system of quality markers should now be developed to provide more accurate, fairer, and actionable guidance for future quality assessment. At a time when ever more work is recognised and classed as being interdisciplinary, the need for clear and shared evaluative standards is a pressing concern in the academic and policy world.

The failure to establish valid markers can be accounted in ways that make appeal to two distinct, though related, causes. One is lack of a shared theoretical framework that would capture the distinctive attributes of interdisciplinary integration beyond immediate references to the non-reductive, inclusive, contextual, and serendipitous nature of the process. In fact it can be argued that any project aimed at constructing valid indicators is hostage to fortune without a proper methodology of integration. The second cause is a more practical concern about the need to design consistent measures for distinguishing good from bad interdisciplinary research, locally, nationally, and internationally.

In the absence of agreed upon metrics, decisions for allocating interdisciplinary research funding is most likely to be suboptimal. While scientometricians have made strides in attempting to measure interdisciplinarity, the inherently complex nature of interdisciplinary research poses significant challenges. In addition to conceptual issues, criticisms also include the simplistic nature of current measures. Calls have thus been made for better theoretically founded, more sophisticated, and dynamic approaches to more accurately capture the essence of interdisciplinary research.

This is a proposal for a Panel Session to contribute to ITD24 stream #1: “Enhancing the theoretical foundations of inter- and transdisciplinarity”. In response to the Call for proposals, we aim at contributing to the current debate on the “nature, implementation, and evaluation of integration”, based on experience with the “evaluation and assessment” of “multi-case studies”. The purpose is therefore twofold. In the first part, we diagnose, reconstruct, and critique the two causes of the current lack of consistent measures, by presenting joint work that engages philosophical understandings of concepts of integration with the demand for scientometric operationalisations of interdisciplinarity. In the second part of the session, we broaden the scope of the discussion by putting our framework to the test in the context of sharing and discussing direct experience of research evaluations with a relevant stakeholder and the wider public alike.

by Bethany Laursen, Stephen Crowley, Chad Gonnerman, Julie Mennes, Michael O'Rourke, Brian Robinson

Knowledge integration is essential in inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) education and research. However, integration looks different wherever it emerges (Klein 2012), which makes it difficult to learn about integration from multiple cases. ITD theorists and practitioners long to answer questions such as these: What conditions make integration more likely to succeed or fail? How can we describe integration in ways that others can understand? What are the minimal markers of successful integration? We sense that somehow integration is both one thing and myriad things at once, and this paradox stymies our attempts to understand and reliably facilitate integration.

In this presentation, we contribute to what we call the "philosophy of integration" by characterizing a "general use of the concept" of integration (O'Malley 2013) that does justice both to the fact that the term ‘integration’ is broadly used in very similar ways across the crossdisciplinary literature and the fact that this literature describes a rich variety of integrative cases in inter-, trans- and other crossdisciplinary work. We argue that, for certain purposes, this general use of ‘integration’ can be characterized in terms of a simple, customizable model that is a development of the Input-Process-Output (IPO) approach to crossdisciplinary integration introduced by O'Rourke and colleagues (2016).

After describing the simple model using example cases, we demonstrate how it can be combined with structures imported from other frameworks (e.g., levels of organization in biology, timescales in sociology of science). We show how such combinations enable new research questions about integration across cases and within cases over time and space. Like the original IPO model, inputs, process, and outputs remain essential features of the simple model. However, unlike the IPO model, which includes all possible ways integration can vary, the simple model is customized to include only the variables needed to describe the integrative case(s) under consideration. Modeling integration in this way preserves enough commonalities (inputs, processes, and outputs) to be able to recognize integration in vastly different cases while also being able to capture the sources of their variation–certain features about the inputs, processes, and outputs.

We demonstrate how the model can be customized and applied using nine accounts of integration in the life sciences that were published in 2013 as part of a special collection of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. These accounts summarize a diverse array of life sciences research activity, and the model distills these accounts to highlight the main sources of variability in the set. In this example application, the sources are mainly features of the inputs and outputs. We show how the model is therefore a concise tool for describing and analyzing key components of integration within and across cases. We conclude by indicating some ways the model could be further customized to support future work, especially deeper examination of integrative processes that include “microintegrations”, or local events of integration that ground larger integrative achievements.

by Kathrin Wieck, Audrey Podann

The co-production of new integrated knowledge by transgressing boundaries between science and society is one major principle of transdisciplinarity. Against the background of the planetary grand challenges and therefore on simultaneous scales of societal and scientific transformation, the implementation of participatory, transdisciplinary and transformative research and how it is embedded in the field of research practice by various sets of formats, methods and tools can no longer be called into question. However, it is still struggling to become a regular and natural part of the scientific system of research institutions as an established mode of research (alongside basic research and interdisciplinarity). This is necessary in order to initiate transdisciplinary projects in a more targeted manner and to support them in an advisory capacity, to link them in research and teaching and to establish long-term collaborations between research and society. An institutional transformation is essential at the strategic level of higher education policies, rules and processes. How can we overcome boundaries and create a common knowledge base to better enable and support transdisciplinarity as a research principle at Universities?

In the framework of the ENHANCE alliance and following the research and innovation dimension seven European Technical Universities aim to develop such a transformation agenda which enact the universities as drivers for sustainable development. Therein the knowledge exchange between science and society is one building stone of the transformation modules – named as sustainable development through transdisciplinary research. Both, common aspects and the diversity of practices, universities cultures and methodologies, are taken into account to develop synergies among the European network. Beyond this background, the following objectives has been followed:

1. to taken into account different status of experiences with transdisciplinarity, different universities policies and strategies as well as different practices,

2. to develop an integrative process for achieving a joined knowledge and working base and

3. to generate recommendations for institutional change within the alliance in terms of a gradual instituationalisation of transdisciplinarity.

Two key paths have been conducted and stimulate future implementation into practice: firstly, the development of a shared understanding of transdisciplinarity addressing interaction, societal challenges, co-production of new knowledge and aiming to societal transformation. Secondly, the development of a concept of good practices by identyfying and analysing a variety of different approaches of transdisciplinary initiatives. They represent all ENHANCE partners and the connection between the strategic and practice level of transdisciplinary projects, the different levels of societal engagement and a broad scope on societal impacts.

With this paper we want to represent how we step-by-step developed this mutual learning impact, discuss what triggers and barriers we identified and how we integrated them in the toolbox for institutional transformation. In doing so, we want to critically reflect on how we have worked through the process together, what different perspectives have been brought in and how synergies have been realised in the ENHANCE network. We want to show what we have learnt from this field of experimentation at the strategic level of institutional transformation and how it can possibly be transferred.

By Marlene Franck, Sebastian Preiss

As an intermediary institution working in transdisciplinary project contexts, the social design lab experienced the demands to enable strategic project iteration in open ended processes and real-world experimentation settings. Small, barely perceptible changes within the project context often seemed to be the drivers for societal change and transformations. In order to empirically prove this perception and efficiently prompt adjustment of resources and the research/project design, a real-time impact observation methodology was developed within the social design lab. This methodology seeks to identify impacts, potentials, and changing needs during the project, complemented by an ex-ante and ex-post analysis. The presentation will provide an explanation of this methodology.

The framework of the impact observation is set in the ex-ante impact orientation phase. In this phase a vision and the transformation tracks are formulated. Transformation tracks are strategic corridors, which the project team defines as crucial for reaching the desired societal transformation. For each transformation track qualitative short-term objectives, so-called transformation qualities are defined.

Within the operative work of transdisciplinary projects, the real time impact observation Is the heart of the developed methodology. It is carried out by collecting and evaluating information on (presumed) impacts or small changes, so called impact particles that could potentially lead to impacts. To foster feasibility, impact particles are noted by the observing team members in a questionnaire shortly after the observation. These notes are always taken in a standardized template (context, occurring change, assumptions about long term consequences, actors, date). If possible, all information about occurring change is directly assigned to the transformation track and transformation qualities to which they are presumably contributing. In frequent cycles the collected impact particles are presented, discussed and checked for data quality. Based on clustered impact particles and complemented by insights from discussions in the team, recommendations for action and adjustments to the strategy are developed. The recommendations for action lead to instructions and to-dos for the project team, making the impact observation a central method for project management.

After completing a long-term project cycle, or a whole project, an ex-post analysis is conducted. During a half-day workshop, the conclusions of each transformation quality are reviewed and impact narratives are formulated. These narratives describe impact patterns and chains that became visible throughout a longer time period, connecting different transformation qualities.

The methodology helps to observe impact in the sdl projects, yet this approach is not without flaws. Detailed notetaking of impact observation is time consuming, creating a trade-off between addressing real-world problems and gaining insights about impact. However, as the impact observation is producing knowledge for social transformation processes and helps the sdl to better process and pass on experiences, this effort is considered worthwhile. Regular reflection cycles help not overlooking small but important refinements in the daily routine. In order to efficiently carry out impact observation on a daily basis, the sdl developed some feasible and easily implementable approaches and techniques.

by Eleni Spiroudis, Ursula Brack

Since starting operations in 2021, the School for Transdisciplinary Studies (STS) at the University of Zurich (UZH) has been encouraging students to explore real-world challenges by going beyond disciplinary boundaries and engaging with practice partners. In this proposal, we will share two examples of our teaching programs, including the upcoming Minor "Digital Skills" set to launch in the fall semester of 2024, and highlight our challenges and strategies in transdisciplinary higher education at UZH.

Teaching Programs Illustrating Transdisciplinary Practices and Approaches

1. Course "Study Week: Sustainable Development and Transformation": Centered around sustainable development, this Study Week engages students in real-world projects through a multi-stakeholder process. Working in interdisciplinary groups with peers and teachers from different disciplines, students create strategies for achieving sustainability goals with guidance from practice partners serving as coaches. Evaluation findings show that participants develop a deeper understanding of sustainability issues and demonstrate enhanced problem-solving skills.

2. Minor "Digital Skills": The 30 ECTS Master's minor program "Digital Skills" designed by the Digital Society Initiative at UZH is the first inter- and transdisciplinary minor, open to all students regardless of their bachelor's background. This program equips students with an interdisciplinary understanding of digitalization, fostering critical reflection on its societal impact. Individualized learning paths enhance digital skills in areas like programming, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, applied to transdisciplinary projects that integrate ethical, legal, and social knowledge. Evaluation findings from some modules that have already been piloted show that students gain a robust competency in digital technologies and their societal implications.

Strategies to Meet the Challenges of Transdisciplinary Higher Education at UZH

Traditional educational institutions often struggle to adapt their structures and curricula to accommodate transdisciplinary teaching programs, as illustrated by the examples mentioned above. Such programs require collaboration across departments and faculties, which are often in contrast to the traditionally discipline-oriented structures and governance in university education. To address these challenges, UZH has taken significant steps, most notably through the establishment of the School for Transdisciplinary Studies that plays a crucial role in supporting educators in the conception, planning, and implementation of transdisciplinary teaching. In a recent development, the STS has allocated a modest budget to award teaching assignments for selected courses offered by the School. In addition to that, UZH also leverages the UZH Teaching Fund to strategically advance the portfolio of offerings in transdisciplinary education. While this funding serves as a catalyst for the initial stages of implementation, a persistent challenge remains: Traditional discipline-oriented structures lack established mechanisms to seamlessly integrate and sustain these transdisciplinary teaching approaches beyond the initial stages.

Lessons Learned and Conclusion

Inter- and transdisciplinary practices and approaches to learning and teaching are desired, but not easy to implement at a comprehensive university. The University of Zurich acknowledges the hurdles and is actively working to create incentives and opportunities for transdisciplinary teaching. The establishment of the School for Transdisciplinary Studies and the strategic use of the UZH Teaching Fund are crucial steps in overcoming these challenges, although further efforts are required to seamlessly integrate these initiatives into the broader framework of university education. We look forward to sharing our experiences at the ITD24, contributing to a dynamic discussion on the challenges of transdisciplinary higher education in the ever-evolving landscape of academia.