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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.

© Image source: University of Bern

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?

© Image source: i2Insights

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.

© Image source: Universität Würzburg

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.

© Image source: ta-swiss

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 

© Image source: i2insights

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!

© Image source: Ariana Prestes

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.

© Image source: Mountain Reserach and Development/Tobias Plieninger

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.

© Image source: i2insights

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.

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