Community news
Here you will find all the news of the last four months from the transdisciplinary community. The website is constantly updated. If you have any messages you would like to share, please do not hesitate to contact us.

24.06.25, Universität Bern
Swiss Social Sciences & Humanities Energy Research Group
The Swiss Social Sciences & Humanities Energy Research Group – sign up on our website!
You can always become active, send emails to the whole group, and suggest workshops, conferences, and other community formats for exchange on energy topics. Currently, we also are very interested in new members from the Arts, as well as from the civil society.
Please feel also free to join the Swiss Social Sciences & Humanities Energy Research Group on Linkedin.

24.06.25, i2insights
A framework for creating effective team integration in interdisciplinary research
By Collen Cuddy
What kinds of integration are required in interdisciplinary teams to truly synthesize diverse knowledge and perspectives, creating meaningful outcomes? What are the key facilitators of successful integration?

17.06.2025, Universität Würzburg
Stadt und Uni Würzburg starten gemeinsames Transformationslabor
Mit einer feierlichen Auftaktveranstaltung ist das „Transformationslabor Stadt und Universität Würzburg“ gestartet. Ziel ist es, gemeinsam Lösungen für gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozesse zu entwickeln und zu erproben.

17.06.2025, TA-SWISS
2024 – an exemplary year for TA-SWISS
While many scientific institutions and public administrations strive to anticipate technological developments and their implications, TA-SWISS's scope is broader in that it analyses technological trends from a wide-ranging, macrosocial. At the express request of the Swiss parliament, it assesses technological trends from a wide-ranging, macrosocial perspective, outlining options for action.
In its annual report the Foundation provides insight into the various mechanisms put in place to ensure the relevance, breadth and analytical depth and quality of its interdisciplinary reports. 2024 can be seen as a prime example of this, with the foundation publishing four significant studies while simultaneously working on or initiating five additional projects.

17.06.2025, i2Insights
Apirl-June 2025 i2S News
The April-June 2025 i2S News provides the latest developments in the Integration and Implementation Sciences (i2S) theoretical framework covering research approaches, imperfection, and trust. Further, 19 tools were added to two repositories covering change, decision making, diversity, integration, research implementation, stakeholder engagement, systems and teamwork. In addition, there are two new videos featuring a South–North dialogue and pioneering teaching efforts, as well as two new blog posts discussing artificial intelligence

17.06.25, i2Insights
i2Insights Contributions
AI, Africa and advice on planning stakeholder workshops feature in recent stand-out contributions to i2Insights blog and repository. Faye Miller highlights capacities essential for transdisciplinarians to make the most of AI; Basirat Oyalowo lays out the critical role for TD in in achieving higher education’s third mission in Africa and PhD student, Maxine Fromm, provides practical lessons for planning transdisciplinary stakeholder workshops.

17.06.2025, i2Insights
Harnessing the collision of four ways of knowing
By Adrian Wolfberg.
How can solving today’s most complex challenges reckon with four fundamentally different ways of knowing? How can the collision of their distinct epistemic strengths and blind spots be harnessed for innovation in threat assessment and decision-making on complex problems?

26.05.25, Utrecht University
Applications open: Governance, Design and Delivery of Interdisciplinary Higher Education Summer School, 27-31 October 2025, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Utrecht University has adopted a comprehensive approach to broadening and deepening its interdisciplinary teaching & learning portfolio on all levels of education (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD and continuing education). The course combines theory and experiments in the governance of interdisciplinary higher education (IHE) with educational development and teacher professionalization for IHE and with research of IHE.
Registration deadline: 20 June 2025

26.05.2025, SCNAT
Roles of scientists in society
Current challenges such as the transformation towards sustainable ways of living require a closer collaboration of science with society and politics. How scientists can support such societal processes most effectively depends on the situation and the topic. A new guide for reflecting on possible roles in sustainability transformations as well as general principles derived from it help to analyse the different roles of researchers in society. These are available online on a new website.

22.05.25, i2insights, intereach
Video online: Measuring What Matters in Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Developing and Testing the Perspective Integration Capability (PIC) Scale
The video of the great webinar “Measuring What Matters in Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Developing and Testing the Perspective Integration Capability (PIC) Scale” by Maritza Salazar Campo is now on the Integration and Implementation Sciences Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/i2sTalks/.
This webinar is the seventh in the series Intentional Integration: How do we know if it’s working?
It’s in a playlist called “Intereach webinar series.” The direct url is: https://youtu.be/GGl5Pt-F0Cs

22.05.25, Utrecht University
Five-Legged Sheep?
Colleagues from the Netherlands are undertaking an explorative survey into inter- and transdisciplinary PhDs as part of the project: Five-Legged Sheep? Selecting, Training, Supervising and Rewarding Inter- and Transdisciplinary Researchers. They seek input from supervisors of inter- and transdisciplinary PhD projects through a survey. The survey covers 6 themes: your academic profile, experience with PhD supervision, motivations for PhD supervision, selection and hiring of inter- and transdisciplinary PhD candidates, team supervision, and competencies for inter- and transdisciplinary PhD supervision. Completing it is found to take approximately 20 minutes. The team is very grateful if you take the time to share your experiences!

19.05.25, Mountain Reserach and Development
Mountain Research and Development Vol 45, No 1: Woodland Resurgence and Sustainability in Mountains
How can woodland resurgence best benefit people and nature? Articles in this focus issue reflect the diversity of woodland resurgence across mountain contexts, as well as the growing importance of restoration in the context of this phenomenon. In the MountainDevelopment section, contributions assess an Andean forest restoration project in Peru and a reforestation project integrating local ecological knowledge in Nepal. Articles in the MountainResearch section focus on forest structural complexity in Nepal and on farm trees as cultural keystone species in Morocco. In the MountainPlatform section, GLOMOS shares experiences from its first 5 years of action, and ARU presents its Malagasy Mountain Programme; both invite cooperation and partnerships.

19.05.25, i2insights, Gabriele Bammer
How individual members can contribute to effective team functioning
For team dynamics to work effectively, what is the range of contributions that needs to be covered by different team members? How can diversity in skills relevant to team functioning be effectively recognised and harnessed? Here the focus is not on the actual task the team is trying to accomplish, but rather the dynamics of working together and the different contributions or roles required for effective team functioning.
01.05.25
Eine Plattform für zukunftsfähiges Bauen und Wohnen – für mehr bezahlbaren Wohnraum in Deutschland
Deutsches Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Bezahlbares Wohnen zählt zu den drängendsten Herausforderungen der Gesellschaft. Gleichzeitig kommt der Transformation des Bausektors eine immense Bedeutung zu, um Ressourcen zu schonen und den Klimawandel zu bekämpfen. In dem von acatech – Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften koordinierten Projekt "Bauen & Wohnen: Plattform für Vernetzung, Synthese und Transfer" geht es darum, Hürden von sozialen und technologischen Innovationen für mehr bezahlbaren Wohnraum im Bestand zu identifizieren und praxisnahe Lösungen zu entwickeln.