Standardization in the context of transdisciplinarity

Abstract

Transdisciplinarity is an integrative approach that includes different scientific disciplines as well as stakeholders and researchers to tackle both societal and scientific challenges. Since standards are jointly developed by science, business, and other stakeholders, standardization can be perceived as a specific mode of transdisciplinarity. In the discussion on knowledge transfer as a further performance dimension for researchers, participation in standardization procedures is now also being considered as a further channel, albeit without a sound conceptual and empirical basis. The paper thus aims to provide a conceptual base of standardization as a transdisciplinary knowledge production mode and transfer channel but also gives an outlook on its empirical implementation. The literature review on transdisciplinarity helps us to put standardization into the context of transdisciplinary research and to present a conceptual model of standardization as transdisciplinary knowledge production and transfer. Further, we present the first methodological approaches for the empirical analysis of the transdisciplinary character of standardization. Finally, we conclude with a summary, a number of recommendations derived from transdisciplinary research for standardization, and an outlook toward future research to be tackled with the proposed methodologies.