Transdisciplinary Research Project Research Articles

T-shaped craft researchers’ contribution in transdisciplinary research projects

T-shaped craft researchers’ contribution in transdisciplinary research projects

Maye Ma Leka – Reframing Congolese-Swedish Colonial Entaglements

This article will discuss an artistic research project exploring a repressed part of Swedish colonial history by unboxing and unfolding a hidden trove of photographs and films amassed by Swedish Missionaries in Congo. The transdisciplinary and transnational research project explores how material traces of Swedish colonial history can support contemporary discourses, processes, and practices of recovery from the colonial period's devaluation of indigenous knowledge systems.  By developing a participatory practice based on artistic research methods, the project contributes new perspectives on critical re-examinations and future knowledge in artistic research. 

Putting grant/d terms to work: from promise to practice in inter- and transdisciplinary research projects

Sustainability research is increasingly based on inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches (IDR and TDR). In this article, we examine how grant terms (used in grant proposals for IDR and TDR projects) are put into practice. We analyzed three research projects to study how TDR and IDR are performed and why, and what we can learn for sustainability research. From a feminist perspective and using a conceptual framework including empty signifiers, comfort words and non-performativity we explore the difficulty of performing the terms, and the risk that they remain merely grand terms, promising and useful for proposals, but not guiding everyday research practice. Based on the analysis, we present seven patterns that complicate performing the terms. We suggest that these patterns can be helpful for other researchers developing their TDR and IDR research practice.

Exploring cultural landscape narratives to understand challenges for collaboration and their implications for governance

ABSTRACT Ongoing land use change, including both land abandonment and agricultural intensification and expansion, not only present a threat for biodiversity and ecosystem health but also for the persistence of cultural landscapes. However, farmland abandonment and the resulting loss of traditional cultural landscapes is an under-researched topic in the literature. Our work in a transdisciplinary action research project in the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve suggested that challenges to preserve the cultural landscape are rooted in diverging landscape understandings and future aspirations. Dealing with and integrating different perceptions and viewpoints is a key challenge in landscape governance. Narratives as storylines about a topic or an issue have a structural and temporal dimension and can help understand land-use conflicts and different viewpoints. We adopted a social constructivist perspective on landscape to engage with meanings and perceptions (including values) that constitute landscape to diverse stakeholders. To understand these differences in meaning, we drew on Q-methodology and conducted 38 interviews with key stakeholders. We elicited three co-existing and partly overlapping landscape narratives. These differ with regard to meanings of the term cultural landscape, including how stakeholders characterise the landscape, how they appreciate it, and what they perceive as threats. We show how such differences in meanings and values attributed to the landscape translate to different problem framings and future aspirations and thus present a barrier for collaborative management and governance. We highlight how participatory vision development could help address narrative tensions and argue that a more integrative perspective would better include cultural aspects.

Generativity as a heuristic for impact-driven scholars addressing grand challenges

In this contribution, we theorize generativity as a heuristic for impact-driven management scholars seeking to address grand challenges through research. We use generativity to connote the engagement of diverse actors in pluralistic inquiry to create conditions for future flourishing. Our theorization applies a pragmatist worldview and builds on insights from the multidisciplinary literature on generativity to envisage researchers as agents of care, collective learning, and transformative change. We synthesize four tenets for researchers seeking both academic and real-world impact. These tenets can support researchers addressing grand challenges by guiding their efforts to diversify inputs, distribute agency, conduct experiments, and pursue prospective impacts. We illustrate generativity in action by drawing on our experience in a transdisciplinary research project on small- and medium-sized enterprises taking climate action in Canada. We show how the four tenets foster generativity to promote an inclusive understanding of grand challenges and a bias toward action, thereby providing an optimistic stance toward addressing issues of social concern.

Reflections of a graduate student team on developing and implementing a transdisciplinary research project: Challenges, recommendations, and lessons learned

Reflections of a graduate student team on developing and implementing a transdisciplinary research project: Challenges, recommendations, and lessons learned

Making mutual learning tangible: Mixed-method Delphi as a tool for measuring the convergence of participants’ reciprocal understanding in transdisciplinary processes

This paper proposes an approach to capture mutual learning within transdisciplinary research to develop future-oriented sustainability solutions to land use conflicts. While quality criteria for transdisciplinary research projects are increasingly discussed, there is still ample methodological potential to enable and better understand mutual learning as a key component of transdisciplinarity. Changes in the specific developments of perceptions of the participants are difficult to be tamed and tracked. To address this shortcoming we propose to apply the Delphi method for longitudinal tracking of mutual learning within transdisciplinary research. We present the application of the methodological approach as part of a transdisciplinary project on sustainable land use in the district of Lüneburg (Lower-Saxony, Germany). Evaluation of semi-structured interviews with seven participants translated into a three-round Delphi survey. A concluding round of semi-structured interviews was performed to validate and deepen the findings. The results showcase that the Delphi method can facilitate the operationalization of the convergence of understandings as a relevant outcome of mutual learning within transdisciplinary projects.

Conceptualising boundary work activities to enhance credible, salient and legitimate knowledge in sustainability transdisciplinary research projects

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) is one method where scientific and societal actors, each with various backgrounds, collaborate to address complex problems through knowledge co-creation. Despite its widespread use, TDR still lacks a common definition and methodology which makes it challenging to define clear mechanisms for knowledge co-creation that facilitate impact. Many authors across complementary bodies of literature provide lists of principles, best practices and approaches for TDR, but in practice these are rarely applied consistently. In this conceptual paper, we fill this gap and increase methodological coherence for sustainability TDR by consolidating these bodies of literature into a list of suggested activities for scientists and practitioners across contexts to apply to enhance the impact of their work. We consolidate primary and secondary literature from the fields of TDR, sustainability, research impact, stakeholder engagement, project management, boundary work and knowledge systems with our own practical experience in sustainability TDR projects. This synthesis leads to our conceptual and analytical framework of twelve boundary work activities that enhance credible, salient and legitimate (CSL) knowledge. Our assumption is that if boundary work activities are successfully implemented across the phases of a TDR project and enhance CSL knowledge, then there will be cascading effects that support a higher likelihood of knowledge use and outcomes that lead to impactful sustainability transformations.

Real-world experiments as a teaching and learning approach for sustainable consumption education

Purpose This paper aims to propose and evaluate an innovative approach to education for sustainable consumption (ESC) which empowers teenagers and young adults to improve sustainable consumption competences. This approach combines pedagogical learning approaches such as real-world learning (e.g. experiential learning and research-based learning) with transformative and transdisciplinary research approaches (i.e. real-world laboratory research). Design/methodology/approach Through a transdisciplinary research design, the authors explore if real-world experiments (RWEs) offer a suitable approach for sustainable consumption education at schools. RWEs are a research approach for knowledge production, aiming to go beyond temporary interventions, to establish semi-permanent spaces for sustainability transformation and reflexive learning. To evaluate this proposal, the authors study already existing active teaching and learning approaches developed within and for ESC and put these in perspective, to define and understand the RWEs. Findings Insights from a transdisciplinary research project which applied RWEs as a teaching and learning approach in German schools complement conceptual considerations. As a result, advantages, such as the development of core competencies among learners, but also challenges experienced, are illustrated. Though, the challenges found are not unique to the RWE, rather they point out important potentials for ESC through suggesting systematic changes in educational institutions and teaching approaches. Originality/value This paper explores RWEs as an active and participatory teaching and learning approach for sustainable consumption education at schools and delivers practical insights and a definition of RWEs as an innovative teaching and learning approach.

Extending Voice Work

“Extending Voice Work” documents a 2018 transdisciplinary research project (with an actor, director, musician, and philosopher), which explored the rehearsal space as feminist praxis and culminated in a production of the one-woman show Sabina’s Splendid Brain, by Canadian playwright Carol Sinclair. The rehearsal process included an extended or expanded voice workshop by Fides Krucker. The article traces a first-person, first-time experience of undergoing a voice workshop. It draws on a thick description of this experience to argue that voice work revolutionizes an understanding of key feminist philosophies of embodiment. In allowing a person to unearth and tangibly connect to preverbal bodily memories, voice work enables an experience of aspects of these feminist theories in practice. However, the article claims voice work also illuminates the limitations of these feminist concepts in their overall theorization of embodiment and the voice. An attentiveness to the practice of voice work demonstrates the inadequacy and undesirability of any one or any final theorization of embodiment. Instead, the article claims, voice work opens up a space for an ongoing rethinking of the intertwining of meaning and embodiment. It concludes that voice work can be a practice that allows us to connect with, write, resist, and rewrite the ever-emerging stories of our own, always embodied experience.

Sites for sustainability transitions: the interplay of urban experiments and socio-spatial configurations in transforming habits

Urban experiments intervene in selected sites to initiate transition processes. But how do the socio-spatial characteristics of these sites affect urban experiments and vice versa? We address this question by focusing on everyday habits and their reciprocal relationship with the socially produced space that surrounds them. Using conceptual analysis and by means of empirical examples, we consider which socio-spatial narratives, infrastructures and regulations facilitate or hinder urban experimentation. Rather than treating space as a pre-determined neutral stage, we conceptualise it as socially produced configurations that both affect interventions and are shaped by them. The transactional pragmatist perspective allows us to conceptualise how everyday habits can be disturbed and transformed in experimental processes. This notion is enriched by a socio-spatial categorisation of three aspects that co-constitute space. On this basis we develop an analytical framework to outline four possible dynamics arising from urban experimentation and the changing relations between actors and spaces. Empirical examples from the transdisciplinary research project Dresden – City of the Future: Empowering Citizens, Transforming Cities! illustrate the applicability of the framework. Our conceptual contribution provides a tool for analysing the socio-spatial dynamics of urban experiments. This sheds light on the agency of actors by conceptualising how they engage with socio-spatial configurations. We argue that further research on the role of space in urban experimentation is required to better explicate underlying socio-spatial understandings, while drawing on empirical data to test which socio-spatial concepts provide explanatory power for transition dynamics.

From scientific authority to the court jester: Shedding light on epistemic pluralism within transdisciplinary research projects

This paper aims to share and analyze the difficulties and discomfort that social scientists may face when conducting transdisciplinary research. Focusing on the case study of a research project that brought together farmers, farm advisors, social and biotechnical science teachers, and researchers interested in seed management and participatory plant breeding, it questions the use of science and the position of social scientists in processes of agroecological transformation. The paper provides an analytical insight into the knowledge ecology of stakeholders who want to move away from the hybrid maize varieties bought and grown by farmers in order to work with open-pollinated populations. The results shed light on discrepancies between different levels of interaction within the project, through an original method using video to intervene at the interface of farms, local groups, and meetings of the research project steering committee. The authors first explain how they used video recording and filmmaking to give voice to ways of doing that are often shifting and indeterminate in the face of evidence-based criteria. They then show how this methodological framework opened up an arena in which to scrutinize different ways of knowing and being, though only momentarily. They share their frustrations and the methodological questions they faced, drawing on the figure of the court jester to discuss the role that researchers might play within such configurations. The paper concludes with a critical perspective on the development of transdisciplinary research projects that truly reflect the principles of agroecology, pointing to the need to emphasize scientific pluralism by engaging participants in a collective exercise of epistemic clarification and dialogue.

Communication tools and their support for integration in transdisciplinary research projects

This study investigated how different communication tools support integration in transdisciplinary research. Ten digital and analogue tools with different communication directions and degrees of participation were tested in a 3.5-year transdisciplinary research project. Based on an exploratory operationalisation of the social-organisational, cognitive-epistemic and communicative dimensions of integration, we compared the tools’ integration support as perceived by 80 practitioners, 6 scientists and 3 integration experts. The multi-methods approach involved three surveys at different project phases, an ex-post poster assessment and interviews. The study showed that a variety of tools can serve diverse actors’ needs with varying preconditions and can play a supportive role for integration. Throughout the research process, the project website was identified as the central information platform for all groups. A living document in the form of a large hand-drawn poster and sketchnotes provided quick and understandable overviews and were particularly relevant for the communicative and the social-organisational dimension of integration. Digital videoconferences performed best in the cognitive-epistemic dimension and were found to be effective for information exchange, while online voting, emails and minutes were perceived to be less relevant. The involvement of integration experts with diverse communication and visualisation skills can support adaptive, context-specific and dynamic choices of communication tools, making project outcomes accessible to a variety of actors in a timely and transparent way throughout the project. The communication tools that were perceived by the actors to be most supportive were those that used visual and textual sign systems and facilitated a strong group identity. Therefore, we conclude that future research should include and operationalise a fourth, emotional dimension of integration.

Biodynamic farming research and transdisciplinary knowledge co-production: Exploring the synergies

Transdisciplinary research (TDR) values the inclusion of multiple worldviews for knowledge co-production. Biodynamic farming (BF) corresponds to a specific worldview, in which inner capacities play a major role. Through its century-old history, BF has proven to be an important source and catalyst for innovation. This ability can be fostered as part of TDR projects and inspire leading edge methodological innovations for the TDR field itself. The article provides multiple examples of such synergies, yet it is argued that much of the transformative potential remains to be activated.

A transdisciplinary multiscaled approach to engage with green infrastructure planning, restoration and use in sub-Saharan Africa

AbstractThe systematic integration of green infrastructure (GI) concepts in urban planning shows promise to reduce environmental hazards; while creating sociocultural benefits. However, cities in sub-Saharan Africa face rapid urbanisation and are challenged by the degradation of existing GI, increasing their vulnerability to climatic risks. This paper presents the findings of a transdisciplinary research project that investigated GI planning in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, over two years. The researchers conducted a community survey, an on-the-ground rapid assessment of multifunctional benefit provisions, first-hand observations of local stormwater systems, reviewed policy documents and conducted semi-structured interviews with metro officials. To integrate the above findings, four design studios and eight co-creation workshops were held that explored GI spatial planning in the city. The researchers examined the uptake of GI planning principles, and the challenges, opportunities and local proposals for GI applications, and here synthesised some main conclusions. Despite many well-known challenges, GI opportunities include creating socioeconomic incentives for stronger human-nature relations, providing for multifunctional benefits and anchoring GI in local communities. Interactive research can facilitate increased local awareness and engagement, but access to GI benefits is physically constrained and socially determined by knowledge, networks and safety factors. Based on the above findings, the researchers propose locally adapted planning strategies to enhance GI: creating opportunities for GI access and co-ownership, encouraging multifunctional, safe and flexible GI, supporting multiscale GI integration, and strengthening collaborative governance. A joint GI vision can reinforce city ownership along with flexible and creative design alternatives that are rooted in local communities.

Moana Project: lessons learned from a national scale transdisciplinary research project

Moana Project: lessons learned from a national scale transdisciplinary research project

Transdisciplinary Team Science in Health Research, Where Are We?

Modern medicine and healthcare systems focus on diagnosing, treating, and monitoring diseases in clinical practice. However, contemporary disease burden is driven by chronic diseases, whose determinants occur across multiple levels of influence, from genetics to changes in the natural, built environments to societal conditions and policies. Conventional discipline-specific approaches are useful for the discovery and accumulation of knowledge on single causes of disease entities. Multidisciplinary collaborations can facilitate the identification of the causes of diseases at multiple levels, while interdisciplinary collaboration remains limited to transferring tools from one discipline to another, perhaps creating new disciplines (molecular epidemiology, etc). However, these forms of disciplinary collaboration fall short in capturing the complexity of chronic disease. In addition, these approaches lack sufficient power to generate knowledge that is translatable into implementable solutions, because of their failure to provide a holistic view limited their ability to capture the complexity of real-world problems. Transdisciplinary collaborations gained popularity in health research in the 1990 s, when disciplinary researchers began to develop integrated research frameworks that transcended discipline-specific methods. Using cancer research as an example, this position paper describes the nature of different disciplinary collaborations, reviews transdisciplinary research projects funded by the US National Cancer Institute, discusses frameworks to develop shared mental models in teams and to evaluate transdisciplinary collaboration, highlights the role of team science in successful transdisciplinary health research, and proposes future research to develop the science of team science.

Transformation urbaner Infrastrukturen

The transformation of urban infrastructures, such as water, energy and transport, is central for the sustainable development of cities. Those responsible for the provision of public services are increasingly under pressure to transform infrastructures to make them more sustainable. Our paper explores governance-related challenges and solutions to transforming urban infrastructures in the context of the city state of Berlin. In the form of case studies, we investigate three transdisciplinary research projects that attempt to support transformation processes in the water, energy and transport sectors respectively. The analysis draws on reports and publications, discussion with central actors from the projects as well as the city administration between 2017 and 2022. Despite differences between the projects as well as the infrastructure systems addressed, we identify some common barriers for the transformation of urban infrastructures in the city state of Berlin. Results show that local neighbourhoods are important socio-spatial units for catalysing transformation processes. They allow for experiments with more sustainable infrastructure configurations and novel governance approaches. However, these niche experiments do not scale to the mainstream, yet. Across the three infrastructure systems, we discuss potential solutions and conclude with reflections on the implications for the sustainable transformation of urban infrastructures in Berlin and beyond. English title: Transformation of urban infrastructures. Barriers and solutions from three transdisciplinary research projects on networked infrastructures in Berlin

Exploring the potential for transdisciplinary co-production in the case of nuclear waste disposal (W11)

Abstract. Citizen science and other transdisciplinary approaches become more important in environmental policy and within academia. Scientists benefit from citizens as they generate more socially robust knowledge. In the contested theme of nuclear waste management (NWM), such approaches can be particularly valuable, but they also face challenges. Within our transdisciplinary research project (https://www.transens.de/, last access: 12 June 2023), we work jointly with 14 citizens (citizen working group or CWG) who are interested in the topic without being activists or having a specific agenda. The CWG helps us to enrich the research process with experiential knowledge. Parallel to gaining scientific knowledge, trust can be built due to close collaboration. However, the CWG becomes more scientific over time and no longer resembles the general public. This may have positive effects, as discussions can go deeper into scientific concepts, for instance. However, the increased literacy of a CWG may be criticized for lacking impartiality. Moreover, we established a local measurement lab at the village of Remlingen near the Asse II site. This lab is open to the local public for measuring environmental samples using techniques such as gamma spectroscopy. Experts from the Institute of Radioecology and Radiation Protection (IRS) in Hanover provide assistance concerning technical and radiological questions and appropriate interpretation. One essential aim is to enable citizens to measure their own samples under scientific guidance. During the workshop, we would like to discuss the benefits and challenges of such collaborations, going beyond the aforementioned examples. Potential key questions are as follows: How to ensure the quality of the citizens' work (measurements) and interpretation of results? Participation and in particular co-determination lead to a certain responsibility for the outcome: are the citizens aware of this and willing to assume it? To what extent is extended participation with empowerment for decision-making still in line with representative democracy? Is there a possibility for multiplication and/or upscaling of small-scale approaches? We propose a workshop (90 min) setting with a rich picture methodology (https://naturwissenschaften.ch/co-producing-knowledge-explained/methods/method_factsheets/rich_picture, last access: 12 June 2023). After brief inputs on named examples, we will work in groups of approximately five participants. Participants draw a picture (e.g., on a whiteboard or flip chart) with a focus on the positive results and challenges of citizen participation in research projects. After finishing their pictures, the participants note on cue cards which findings surprised them the most. This is followed by a final discussion.

Learning through participation processes

Abstract. The Site Selection Act (StandAG) defines the selection of a repository as a learning process (lernendes Verfahren) in § 1. Learning is also an essential aspect of transdisciplinary (td) research projects – apart from capacity and network building in addition to supporting change. Transdisciplinarity means that different academic disciplines (interdisciplinary) work together with practitioners (e.g. citizens, NGOs and government officials) to integrate the knowledge, interests and values from various sources to solve a real-world problem (Klein et al., 2001). Joint working involves a functional dynamic collaboration of disciplines and societal actors, starting with problem framing (co-design) through problem analysis and exploring the impact at the end (co-production). Learning can take place during all phases of the research process and at all levels (i.e. from the individual to the institution). Moreover, how and what is learnt is specific to the project context, topic (e.g. renewable energy) and coincidence of different knowledge types (system, transformation and target knowledge). The Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab) carries out the accompanying research in TRANSENS. TRANSENS is one of the few td research projects found internationally in the field of nuclear waste management. The TdLab analyses, amongst other things, the learning that stems from participation activities. Therefore, we would like to identify the manifold learning experiences of stakeholder integration during the site selection procedure, on the one hand, and of td research projects, on the other hand. Taking into account the perspectives of citizens, practitioners and scientists, this interactive workshop seeks to accomplish the following (see Fig. 1): make visible the learning areas from participation processes in the “real world” (practice; e.g. site selection process) and under “laboratory conditions” (research projects; e.g. TRANSENS), identify the transferability of learning areas from science to practice (including limitations), determine useful learning areas from research projects for practice, and identify knowledge gaps in the “real world” for research projects in the future. From the interactive workshop, we expect the identification of key learning areas, their specific relevance for nuclear waste management and the identification of topics for future research.