As innovators, we are a leader in transdisciplinary education and inquiry. Transdisciplinary teaching and learning expands upon and extends the principles of interdisciplinary study by fostering a holistic approach to studying topics that arise at the intersection of business, science, law, and culture. A transdisciplinary approach integrates the content, methods, and
perspectives of multiple disciplines to extend our knowledge beyond any single, specific domain and deepen our understanding of real-life experiences, creating greater opportunities to address society’s problems. Employers value graduates who have been taught this way, because they are more innovative and more creative. New and enhanced collaborations with employers enable us to strengthen our academic programs.
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Theoretical forms of interdisciplinarity are also associated with the concept of transdisciplinarity, a term that originally connoted an overarching synthesis or a common axiom that transcends the narrow scope of disciplinary worldviews. General systems theory, structuralism, Marxism, feminist theory, sociobiology, and phenomenology have been leading examples. More recently in Europe, two connotations have emerged: a new structure of unity informed by the worldview of complexity in science and trans-sector problem solving involving the collaboration of academics and stakeholders in society. Conceptualized as a form of transcendent interdisciplinary research, the transdisciplinary team science movement in the United States is also fostering new theoretical frameworks for understanding social, economic, political, environmental, and institutional factor in health and well-being (Rosenfield, 1992).
…the concept of transdisciplinarity covers two major and complementary orientations. According to the first of these, which has an epistemological and theoretical accent, trans-disciplinarity is a process of knowing that trans-cends disciplinary boundaries, and entails a major reconfiguring of disciplinary divisions within a systemic, global and integrated perspective. According to the second orientation, which is more pragmatic, participative and applied, transdisciplinarity can be thought of as a method of research that brings political, social and economic actors, as well as ordinary citizens, into the research process itself, in a ‘problem-solving’ perspective. Actors from outside the scientific field contribute to the construction of knowledge and solution of social problems that fall outside disciplinary boundaries. Finally, it should be noted that transdisciplinarity applies also to the exploration of the complex relations woven in a dialogue between the scientific cultures deriving from the technical sciences, life and natural sciences, and the human and social sciences.
Transdisciplinarity is a critical and self-reflexive research approach that relates societal with scientific problems; it produces new knowledge by integrating different scientific and extra-scientific insights; its aim is to contribute to both societal and scientific progress; integration is the cognitive operation of establishing a novel hitherto non-existent connection between the distinct epistemic, social–organizational, and communicative entities that make up the given problem context.
Thomas Jahn, et al., Transdisciplinarity: Between mainstreaming and marginalization
Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.
…“transdisciplinarity” refers to the highest level of integrated study, that which proposes the unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspectives and points toward our potential to think in terms of frameworks, concepts, techniques, and vocabulary that we have not yet imagined.
Transdisciplinarity is a way of thinking and doing. Researchers must be free to follow a problem across disciplinary boundaries; they must be open to collaboration and innovation, drawing on the concepts and methods of other disciplines and creating new approaches to problems; and they must always ask how their creation of knowledge impacts our understanding of humanity's most thorny problems.
The term transdisciplinarity was introduced by Jean Piaget (1970) in his awareness and acknowledgement of and thus attempts to understand the current world with an imperative overarching unity of knowledge. Transdisciplinarity is a principle for unity of knowledge beyond disciplines, and its approach implies full interaction between, among, and beyond disciplines from a real-life problem-based perspective. Transdisciplinary vision is also transcultural and transnational, encompassing ethics, spirituality, and creativity. Infusion of transdisciplinarity into the curriculum requires the following: (a) single disciplinary scientific knowledge to be deepened by the individual; at the same time the knowledge needs to be deconstructed and reconstructed in relationship with other disciplines in order for knowledge of complexity to be contextualized, practically reflecting on the organic reality of human living and its phenomena; and (b) borderless concepts to be generated collectively among the disciplines to play the role of “linking operators.” To this end a curriculum with a transdisciplinary orientation demands a politics of academic civility in the context of discourse among faculty from various disciplines (Hammer & Söderqvist, 2001; Klein, 2004).
In contrast to multidisciplinarity—in which disciplinary specialists work together maintaining their disciplinary approaches and perspectives—and interdisciplinarity—in which areas of overlap or intersection between disciplines are investigated by scholars from two or more areas— transdisciplinarity has been described as a practice that transgresses and transcends disciplinary boundaries. Of the various cross-disciplinary2 approaches, transdisciplinarity seems to have the most potential to respond to new demands and imperatives. This potential springs from the characteristic features of transdisciplinarity, which include problem focus (research originates from and is contextualized in ‘real-world’ problems), evolving methodology (the research involves iterative, reflective processes that are responsive to the particular questions, settings, and research groupings) and collaboration (including collaboration between transdisciplinary researchers, disciplinary researchers and external actors with interests in the research). Given this potential for collaborative and responsive problem-solving, transdisciplinarity has much promise in bringing universities into line with the new knowledge landscape and in meeting global challenges of the 21st century.
Transdisciplinary research: is needed when knowledge about a societally relevant problem field is uncertain…, when the concrete nature of problems is disputed, and when there is a great deal at stake for those concerned by problems and involved in dealing with them. Transdisciplinary research deals with problem fields (see problem field) in such a way that it can: a) grasp the complexity (see complexity) of problems, b) take into account the diversity…of life-world (see lifeworld) and scientific perceptions of problems, c) link abstract and case specific knowledge, and d) develop knowledge and practices that promote what is perceived to be the common good (see common good). (Pohl und Hirsch Hadorn, 2007)
Purposes of Transdisciplinary Programs:
For Faculty and Students:
To ensure that students study concepts, issues and problems from more than one disciplinary perspective.
To ensure that students recognize that knowledge can be constructed using more than one epistemological
framework, even when working with the same or similar “topics.”
To engage students in questioning the division of the knowledge world into discretely bounded disciplines.
To engage students in probing the idea that knowledge derived from the academic disciplines alone may be incomplete as a basis for addressing complex social, ecological, technical and other problems.
To engage students in inquiry that makes use of knowledge generated both in- and outside the academy.
To engage students in probing the validity of various constructions of knowledge in the context of comprehending complex phenomena and addressing complex problems.
To engage students in academic work that both integrates and transcends disciplinary knowledge in an effort to both comprehend and directly address complex problems.
To serve as a vehicle for students and faculty members to comprehend complex phenomena and problems and to engage in actions that address complex social, ecological, technical and other problems. Thereby, to connect students, faculty members, the program and the College with the public liberal arts mission of service to society.
For Society: Similar to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs, to increase the ability of members of society to engage in transformative capacities with complex issues in their work and their civic and social lives in an increasingly complex world. In comparison to graduates of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs, however, graduates of transdisciplinary programs should generally be expected to demonstrate heightened abilities to engage with and evaluate knowledge drawn from multiple contexts both in- and outside the academy and to participate effectively in problem solving work. This difference should derive from the highly integrative and explicitly purposeful orientation of transdisciplinary curricula relative to multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary programs.
Transdisciplinary learning, on the other hand, focuses on the outcomes of interdisciplinary learning, which come from students’ participation in learning and acquisition of knowledge and skills. Transdisciplinarity comprises “researchers working jointly using [a] shared conceptual framework that draws together concepts, theories, and approaches from the parent disciplines” (Rosenfield, 1992, p. 1351). It particularly emphasises students’ learning experience in sharing their skills and experiences (cross-training) and producing new knowledge. Mitchell (2005) argues, “True transdisciplinarity goes beyond simply drawing together concepts from the disciplines and that it creates new frameworks that break down (transgress) the traditional boundaries of the disciplines” (p. 332). Team members must be competent enough in their own disciplines and understand the language of all relevant disciplines that enables them to contribute to the members’ quality research or learning and combine various perspectives to build up a new framework.
Transdisciplinarity, as distinguished from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, requires that researchers invent new science together by exploring research questions at the intersection of their respective fields, conducting joint research projects and “developing methodologies that can be used to re-integrate knowledge.” While the distinctions between interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity may be difficult to tease out in practice, McMichael’s notion that transdisciplinarity promotes “theoretical, conceptual, and methodological reorientation with respect to core concepts of the participating disciplines” is, perhaps, the most helpful. Rather than as an alternative, transdisciplinarity is envisioned as a complement to ongoing discipline-based scientific inquiry that “might lead to a different, higher, plane of inquiry” and enable different questions to be asked.
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