Transdisciplinary Project Research Articles

Imagining climate resilient futures: A layered Delphi panel approach

This paper in using a novel application of the Delphi panel method, explores and consolidates the future visions of a low carbon and climate resilient future in Ireland through community-based visioning processes that emerged through co-created, deliberative approaches at local level. It embraces a visioning process that applies a transdisciplinary approach, which aims to match different visions and stakeholder needs, combining bottom-up and top-down perspectives. Community visions were articulated by means of a series of deliberative futures workshops facilitated by the transdisciplinary project research team. Through iterations of the Delphi feedback loop, the notion of deep and shallow agreement is explored to examine the spectrum of consensus to dissent around the co-developed future visions and pathways of climate action, articulated by the Irish community case study. This approach enables a critical exploration of the conventional science-policy-practice nexus through the use of innovative creative communication and engagement methods. Findings suggest that more deliberative forums which bring together a diverse range of stakeholders are needed to develop a shared vision for the future; the importance of language use and the creation of a shared vocabulary of climate action; and the power of civic imaginaries in helping to create useful future narratives.

Beyond vicarious storytelling: How level telling fields help create a fair narrative on migration

Life stories play a crucial role in migration discourses: they serve as testimony in journalistic work, form the core of ambassadorial storytelling by NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and inspire collaborative projects initiated by writers seeking to express their solidarity. However, this article argues, drawing on migrants’ experiences for such purposes also creates an ethical dilemma: speaking about–or even for–rather than with migrants assigns them a passive role and tends to recycle existing narrative patterns and templates. Starting with a generic distinction between what we call stories of migration (various forms of self-expression granting migrants full authority and control over their narrative) and narratives on migration (external perspectives, e.g. academic, economic, political, and legal approaches, where lived experience doesn’t matter), we explore the extensive middle ground of hybrid forms between these two extremes–i.e. different kinds of vicarious storytelling–before discussing their ethical implications. We further show how the idea of the level playing field, a key concept in economics, can be used in transdisciplinary research projects to establish level telling fields (LTFs), i.e., communicative spaces characterized by a fair dialogue on an equal footing for all participants.

LOVEWEAR: haptic clothing that allows intimate exploration for movement-impaired

Abstract Disabled sexuality often faces physical, political, and societal barriers. The lack of inclusivity in the sex toy market does not support an autonomous experience for impaired individuals who can’t operate toys without external assistance. LOVEWEAR is an art-science collaborative project that combines user-centered design principles with soft robotics integrated into textiles. The aim is to offer an autonomous experience through haptic feedback, allowing self-exploration of intimate sensations and sexual pleasure to females with motor impairments. A pillow interface activates an underwear garment: while caressing and touching the pillow, the wearer triggers the underwear’s inflatable inserts actuators. This transdisciplinary project used a mixed-methods research design; the objective is to promote the embedment of technology into everyday garments, to improve the wearer’s quality of life.

Cooperative co-housing to promote healthy and accompanied ageing in place (Co-aging). Case studies of architectural viability in obsolete neighborhoods in Malaga

Spain is facing a progressive aging of its population and the inversion of its population pyramid, also inverting the income/expense balance of the Estate, and reducing its agency to control the housing market by construction. Our transdisciplinary project proposes cooperative co-housing ways of living inside the existing housing stock of obsolete and aged neighbourhoods in Málaga (south Spain). Re-densifying by sharing the use of obsolete too-big family houses, while renting the others, will provide a solution to the problems of both unwanted loneliness, active and financially independent aging, while increasing and re-activating the housing rental stock. By combining the results of focal meetings realized with inhabitants of the case study neighbourhoods, and the analysis of the specific housing units via several teaching projects at different pre- and post-graduate levels and authors’ design studies, we will test the architectural viability of our project by providing specific on-site solutions to the study cases.

Transnationalizing Critical Drug Studies

This essay explores transnational STS as an analytic capable of recognizing the heterogeneities, pluralities, and relationalities of drugs—legal and illegal, products of agriculture or laboratory—as emblematic material-semiotic actors that move between global North, West, South, and East and into and out of bodies. Critical drug studies flourishes as a transdisciplinary knowledge project at the nexus of anthropology, history, sociology, political science, and other knowledge projects. This article situates critical drug studies in relation to the interdisciplinary knowledge project that is transnational STS and to postcolonial, postpositivist, and decolonial STS. The paper responds to the prompt offered by the organizers of a stream of papers in 2020—on “Transnational STS” for the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S): “What becomes visible when nation-state as the only analytic breaks down? What is the role of the nation-state with regard to education, research activities and the regulation of technologies in the contemporary period?” This article deals with the bifurcated regulation of drugs as technologies made legal or illegal by a global colonial, imperial, and nation-state-based regime that has made global drug policy since the early twentieth century. We are witnessing the reconfiguration of this regulatory system within and between nations—making a transnational analytic frame necessary for recognizing the relations facilitated by global drug policy.

RE-EXAMINING PATIENT-CENTERED CARE THROUGH DESIGN PROCESS

Abstract Service design is the adoption of design process to healthcare and other service sectors. This was a transdisciplinary research project in which investigators were faculty members from Graphic Design and Health Administration. In addition, two student research assistants were recruited from undergraduate Graphic Design and Health Science majors. The objective of service design is to involve consumers, designers, and businesspeople in an integrative process, which can be applied to post-acute rehabilitation hospital settings focusing specifically on the experience of those who are 65 and older. The aim of this pilot study was to explore “designing with people rather than just for them”, an approach to improve the patient experience. Our first step involved on-site interviews. The patient narratives raised challenges and positive aspects of their interactions with the facility. On our initial site visit, we interviewed five members of clinicians and administrative staff. During the two follow-up visits, our student research assistants interviewed seven patients. Based on our staff member interview findings, we developed a revised set of questions for patients. The questionnaire was divided into three sections related to appointments: pre-arrival, during the visit, and after their appointments. Interview results were summarized in a visual data format and collaborative recommendations were made during the final presentation such as interior layout, wayfinding, online portal and their functionalities. Our findings also confirmed that the interior signage created confusion, promoting frequent questions to staff. These results will engage stakeholders and contribute to a co-designing process that will ultimately improve the patient journey.

How input, process, and institutional factors influence the effects of transdisciplinary research projects

Transdisciplinary research projects integrate several disciplines and practice stakeholders into the research process. Both of these interactions are described as important in addressing complex and interconnected sustainability problems. In addition to knowledge generation, transdisciplinary research projects have other effects. For example, they may facilitate the adoption of solutions, whereas traditional research projects focus on the presentation of results. However, there is considerable diversity in transdisciplinary research projects in terms of their design, research process, and surrounding institutions, making it difficult to unravel what type of transdisciplinary research project works well to reach which effects. This article uses a systematic literature review and expert interviews to study how different input, process, and institutional factors influence the effects of transdisciplinary research projects. The results show that process factors, such as the quality of the process or the specific methods used, have the strongest influence on the effects of transdisciplinary projects, whereas institutional factors are less prominent. Furthermore, different factors influence not only the effects but also each other and are thus interconnected.

Participatory multi-criteria evaluation of landscape values to inform wildfire management

Climate change is expected to increase the number of days with meteorological conditions conducive to uncontrollable wildfires. Thus, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of wildfire-prone regions to minimize the adverse impacts of these wildfires by creating resilient landscapes. In this paper we develop a participatory multi-criteria evaluation to identify and map landscape values and prioritize areas according to these values in the Montseny Biophere Reserve (Catalonia, NE Spain). Then, we draft a wildfire management strategy to protect the areas that have been prioritized through selected fuel reduction sectors that would reduce wildfire intensity. Finally, we emphasize the added value of a participatory multi-criteria evaluation in the adaptation to and management of expected megafires. We find that the integration of landscape values through participatory multi-criteria evaluation has the potential to alter wildfire management strategies by adding fuel reduction sectors and changing their implementation order. However, the implementation of the planned fuel reduction treatments faces socioeconomic and institutional barriers that call for a deeper engagement with transdisciplinary project design and transformative science.

The urban sediments of Karlsplatz, Vienna (Austria) as a reference section for the Anthropocene series

Anthropogenic strata form the layered urban archive in the underground of large cities. In a transdisciplinary project involving geosciences, isotope physics and urban archaeology, we looked for artificial isotopes and anthropogenic trace metals. The tested archaeological site Karlsplatz is situated in the city of Vienna (Austria). Archaeology and historical data sets provide age constraints around 1922, post-1945 and at 1959. A layer on top of the WW2 rubble that covers foundations of a 1922 building post-dates 1945, and pre-dates the levelling of the artificial park ground in 1959. The fine-grained sediment matrix of these layers is mixed with backfilled soil material. Samples were analysed for trace elements such as lead, copper and zinc, and prepared for chemical separation of actinides analysed by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). Several artificial radionuclides, including the plutonium and uranium isotopes 239Pu, 240Pu and 236U, were found in the post-1945 layer, and the 240Pu/239Pu isotope ratio clearly points to the presence of atmospheric atomic bomb fallout material of the 1950s. Thus, the bomb-spike can be identified and used as a primary stratigraphic marker even in coarse urban anthropogenic sediments, exemplifying the correlation potential of these radionuclide markers and marking a correlative reference section for the Anthropocene series.

Mapping Open Data and Big Data to Address Climate Resilience of Urban Informal Settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa

This perspective paper highlights the potentials, limitations, and combinations of openly available Earth observation (EO) data and big data in the context of environmental research in urban areas. The aim is to build the resilience of informal settlements to climate change impacts. In particular, it highlights the types, categories, spatial and temporal scales of publicly available big data. The benefits of publicly available big data become clear when looking at issues such as the development and quality of life in informal settlements within and around major African cities. Sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities are among the fastest growing urban areas in the world. However, they lack spatial information to guide urban planning towards climate-adapted cities and fair living conditions for disadvantaged residents who mostly reside in informal settlements. Therefore, this study collected key information on freely available data such as data on land cover, land use, and environmental hazards and pressures, demographic and socio-economic indicators for urban areas. They serve as a vital resource for success of many other related local studies, such as the transdisciplinary research project “DREAMS—Developing REsilient African cities and their urban environMent facing the provision of essential urban SDGs”. In the era of exponential growth of big data analytics, especially geospatial data, their utility in SSA is hampered by the disparate nature of these datasets due to the lack of a comprehensive overview of where and how to access them. This paper aims to provide transparency in this regard as well as a resource to access such datasets. Although the limitations of such big data are also discussed, their usefulness in assessing environmental hazards and human exposure, especially to climate change impacts, are emphasised.

Intellectual property meets transdisciplinary co-design: prioritizing responsiveness in the production of new AgTech through located response-ability

This paper explores the complex relationship between intellectual property (IP) and the transdisciplinary collaborative design (co-design) of new digital technologies for agriculture (AgTech). More specifically, it explores how prioritizing the capturing of IP as a central researcher responsibility can cause disruptions to research relationships and project outcomes. We argue that boundary-making processes associated with IP create a particular context through which responsibility can, and must, be located and cultivated by researchers working within transdisciplinary collaborations. We draw from interview data and situated IP practices from a transdisciplinary co-design project in Aotearoa New Zealand to illustrate how IP is a fluid boundary-requiring-and-producing object that impels researchers into its management, and produces tensions that need to be noticed and skillfully navigated within research relations. We propose located response-ability as a conceptual tool and practice to reposition IP within the relations that make up a transdisciplinary co-design project, as opposed to prioritizing IP by default without recognizing its possible impacts on collaborative relations and other project aims and accountabilities. This can support researchers practicing responsible innovation in making everyday decisions on how to protect potential IP without disrupting the collaborative relations that make the creation of potential IP possible, and the existence of protected IP relevant and beneficial to project collaborators and wider societal actors. This may help to ensure that societal benefits can be generated, and positive science–society relationships prioritized and preserved, in the design of new AgTech.

The New Incorporation of Video Art and Video Poetry during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Matter of Myth or Existing Reality

This paper corresponds to an interdisciplinary investigation based on literature, art and new media to involve own experiences of video work and study of the health crisis between 2020 and 2021 in Spain. The main goal is to investigate the sample of the three videos produced on the coronavirus pandemic, creating a social dialogue to incorporate media arts together with literary arts. It is important to propose the two pieces of video, both the poem or the art discourse and the audiovisual technology to integrate the artwork’s interdisciplinary. Based on this discussion, it consists of a referential account of creative thinking toward the pain of patients in times of COVID-19. In conclusion, this incorporation of video art and video poetry, mainly, is facilitated to give the experimentation of artworks the opportunity to collaborate in the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary project, depending on the connection or link between art and literature.

The New Incorporation of Video Art and Video Poetry during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Matter of Myth or Existing Reality

This paper corresponds to an interdisciplinary investigation based on literature, art and new media to involve own experiences of video work and study of the health crisis between 2020 and 2021 in Spain. The main goal is to investigate the sample of the three videos produced on the coronavirus pandemic, creating a social dialogue to incorporate media arts together with literary arts. It is important to propose the two pieces of video, both the poem or the art discourse and the audiovisual technology to integrate the artwork’s interdisciplinary. Based on this discussion, it consists of a referential account of creative thinking toward the pain of patients in times of COVID-19. In conclusion, this incorporation of video art and video poetry, mainly, is facilitated to give the experimentation of artworks the opportunity to collaborate in the interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary project, depending on the connection or link between art and literature.

Let's not forget those who forget! Participatory design in the context of dementia built environment

Abstract Dementia is a major cause of disability and dependency among older people worldwide. Eco-bio-psychosocially supportive design can significantly reduce agitation and depression while improving mobility and daily activities. For this we need to include dementia patients as experts while understanding the neurological changes and functional impairments associated with the progression of the disease over time. How can we support dementia patients to participate? What tools/processes can we use to involve them in the design process? The aim of this project was to map and evaluate co-design methods for dementia and neurodiversity, in order to create an eco-bio-psychosocially supportive environment. Mixed methods were used comprising a systematic literature review on co-design techniques for spaces for dementia, three workshops: a 3-day one with seven early career researchers translating patient involving methodologies to the dementia context, a round table Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement with six service providers and stakeholders cross three countries and a cross-sectoral international day conference with four academics, four early career researchers and eight stakeholders and a series of co-design workshops for dementia and neurodiversity, which were then classified according to applicability so as to generate co-production methods for living environments for dementia. This transdisciplinary project highlighted the challenges of participatory design in the context of dementia built environment. The importance of the topic was highlighted by clinicians and staff but there are still significant limitations in terms of research and methodologies. The workshops outcome was an inclusive code of conduct for participatory design and research for dementia patients, which will help to improve home and care environments for people with dementia. The framework involved aspects such as time, space, equipment in relation to people involved (carers, patients, proxies). Key messages • The project created a framework to support dementia patients’ involvement for built environment decision making that considers aspects such as time, space and equipment to foster communication. • The framework described the phases and the tools/methods in order to build trust and enable fluidity to accommodate dementia patients’ needs.

Co-Benefits of Transdisciplinary Planning for Healthy Cities

Synergies between urban planning and public health were synthesized a decade ago by the Lancet Commission’s article “Shaping Cities for Health: Complexity and the Planning of Urban Environments in the 21st Century.” Since then, innovative research projects, urban planning projects, and accumulated experience from the World Health Organization Healthy Cities project confirm that transdisciplinary contributions enable the achievement of core principles of healthy cities. This article clarifies important differences between the content, scope, and outcomes of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects about public health and urban planning. It explains why transdisciplinary contributions are more likely to bridge the applicability gap between knowledge and practice in response to persistent urban health challenges; notably, they transgress the boundaries of public health and medical science; they prioritize political action in both the formal and informal construction sectors; and they include citizens, community associations, and private enterprises as partners in consortia for concerted action. This article proposes a radical shift from incremental, reactive, and corrective approaches in planning for urban health to proactive and anticipative contributions using backcasting and alternative scenarios that prioritize health. The article uses the case of public green spaces in planning for urban health. It identifies the shortcomings of many empirical studies that are meant to promote and sustain health before describing and illustrating an alternative way forward.

Surviving Racism and Sexism in Academia: Sharing Experiences, Insights, and Perspectives

Surviving Racism and Sexism in Academia: Sharing Experiences, Insights, and Perspectives

Evolving Praxis in Design Management: The transdisciplinary trajectory

Design has transitioned from its traditional object‐focus to an orientation toward human‐centered design. With this shift, the complexity of design processes, products, deliverables, and artifacts has advanced to acknowledge and honor their impact on human activities and systems across the planet. As design practice has evolved, designers have searched beyond their field for tools, theoretical frameworks, and approaches developed by practitioners from other disciplines that allow for a deeper understanding of the environments and networks in which human and non‐human actors engage. Many designers, including design managers, have adopted anthropology's long‐standing tradition of balancing systems‐level, holistic research with place‐based and deeply contextual inquiry. Over time numerous. sub‐fields within design have emerged to address changing conditions, such as the increasingly strategic role of design within organizations. Design Management (DM) “encompasses the ongoing processes, business decisions, and strategies that enable innovation and create effectively‐designed products, services, communications, environments, and brands that enhance our quality of life and provide organizational success” (Design Management Institute, 2022). Over time DM has embraced transdisciplinarity. It is a prime example and leader in this trend.This paper examines the confluence of theory and methods across the disciplines, specifically Design and Anthropology. Both fields are continuously adapting to accelerating and unpredictable conditions in systems that span industry sectors, economies, socio‐cultural groups, and physical and virtual geographies. It is not surprising there is an increasing confluence and, at the same time, tension and defensiveness in an effort to remain “pure”. However, individuals from both fields have found ways of mixing, integrating, experimenting, and evolving theory and new forms of practice. We will draw on specific, an original transdisciplinary project from practice that will elucidate this tension as well as emerging opportunities. We will argue the weaving of the two fields offers an opportunity to more intentionally put this knowledge into practice and uphold the shared ethical imperative to “do some good” while creating environments that sustain good work. The confluence of design and anthropology perspectives and methodologies and the emphasis on praxis, the practical application of theory in practice, enables practitioners to keep the social and ecological value of design at the center of their work. It is our hope and intention that this paper will inspire designers, educators, practitioners, and theorists to continue creative experimental collaboration in their own evolving practice.

Project-Based Development as a Model for Transdisciplinary Research and Education

Project-based educational environment that focuses on real-world problems and crosssector collaboration instills students' learning pathways with the proficiency to move from the domain-specific to the domain-general knowledge. We conceptualize a project-based curriculum model as central to undergraduate education. Focusing on iterative design and development during each year of the undergraduate degree allows for further enrichment of the undergraduate curriculum. We present a case study of a project-based model in action within Virginia Tech, a large public polytechnic university in the United States. Working with seventy-five industry partners serving as project mentors and twenty-seven transdisciplinary faculty, we discuss methodology key to ensure student learning and project outcomes within this model, including embedding industry partners within project teams, developing transdisciplinary project teams, and encouraging just-in-time implementation of disciplinary knowledge.

Participatory interventions for collective action and sustainable resource management: linking actors, situations and contexts through the IAD, NAS and SES frameworks

Overcoming complex environmental challenges demands different forms of stakeholder participation and collective action. While informative and relevant for participatory interventions, the literatures on collective action and participatory governance have largely remained disconnected. We illustrate how the institutional analysis and development (IAD), network of (adjacent) action situation (NAS) and social–ecological system (SES) frameworks can be combined to provide a coherent approach that integrates these literatures, applies their insights and bridges this disconnect. We compare two similar participatory interventions, one in Colombia and one in Peru, whose design and implementation we supported. Transdisciplinary in nature, both sought to foster collective action for watershed management. The frameworks allow us to demarcate, characterise and reflect upon the action situations (ASs) for the collective choice, coordination and knowledge generation that constituted each participatory intervention (i.e. the constituent NAS) and other relevant operational and institutional ASs that lay outside the boundaries of the participatory interventions. These other ASs may not be linked to one another or to the intervention’s constituent NAS, but they influence the outcomes of interest nevertheless, thereby shaping the potential of the participatory interventions for collective action and sustainable natural resource management. The framework then suggests, and our comparative analysis illustrates, that organisers and researchers of participatory interventions, such as multi-actor deliberative platforms and transdisciplinary research projects, should carefully consider, reflect upon and address the constellation of relevant actors, ASs and contexts co-determining the outcomes of interest. Our study demonstrates how the IAD, SES and NAS frameworks can support that endeavour.

The unexceptional im/mobilities of gender-based violence in the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has spotlighted the relationship between mobilities and gender-based violence (GBV). The national lockdowns across the world have im/mobilised people, creating extraordinary social proximities that have been associated with a ‘shadow pandemic’ of violence. Before the pandemic, GBV was often im/mobilised in academic and policy thinking in that it was located in unconnected static sites. This article is based on a transdisciplinary project that seeks to produce understandings of GBV in the Covid-19 pandemic, using the heuristic lens of im/mobilities. The project aims to do so through the creation and analysis of personal stories detailing experiences of GBV across the UK. These stories are in the form of existing first-hand accounts on campaign websites, magazines and newspapers. Through them this article investigates how im/mobilities precipitate gendered violence, both felt and experienced, and examines how embodied experiences become situated in mobile spaces—inside, outside and online—in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In doing so, it evolves the concept of im/mobilities.