In the quest to understand things, we have divided up knowledge in areas of science and our world in general into categories that we label (like biology, art, and psychology for example) and think of as separate. People study inside these realms intensely until they become experts in them. The problem is that these divisions and their labels are false constructs that we have imposed on a world that is much more complex than the categories convey. When we think in these simple terms (and teach using them) we are oversimplifying our decision making, and that can lead us to make choices that don’t lead to the outcomes we want.
When we make decisions about problems that cross these artificially constructed boundaries (and most problems do cross them), we need to carefully research the issue across disciplines to have a full understanding. This is important because real life doesn’t happen in separate disciplines. Real life crosses disciplines, so to solve problems we need to think across them. This is called transdisciplinarity, and it involves applying the thinking from the many different disciplines that relate to a problem in order to solve it. The more complex the problem, the more important this approach will be to make sure that solutions will work in the real world.

Interdisciplinarity analyses, synthesizes and harmonizes links between disciplines into a coordinated and coherent whole. Transdisciplinarity integrates the natural, social and health sciences in a humanities context, and transcends their traditional boundaries.

In the transdisciplinary instruction preparation process, teachers must have knowledge of disciplines, curriculum design and assessment and the properties of student development and they must have cooperative working skills.

Transdisciplinary learning formats bring together several stakeholders to learn around a particular issue (e.g. a food security issue, …), whereas knowledge of different stakeholders (e.g. farmers, researchers, practitioners, …) is shared and equally important, and with diversity of involved organisations, institutions, and people.

Transdisciplinary learning formats enable stakeholders with different backgrounds to exchange and collaboratively learn about challenges in the food system and how different disciplinary perspectives allow to assess possible solutions.

Transdisciplinary learning formats invest in future decision makers and agents of change take informed systemic action at their current or future places of work or education.

Engaging Students. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered approach in which students learn about a subject by working in groups to solve an open-ended problem used as the vehicle to promote student learning of concepts and principles as opposed to direct presentation of facts and concepts. This problem is what drives the motivation and the learning. In addition to course content, PBL can promote the development of critical thinking skills, working in teams, critical appraisal of information, problem-solving abilities, communication skills and self-directed learning.

Water, food and energy form a nexus at the heart of sustainable development. Agriculture is the largest consumer of the world’s freshwater resources, and water is used to produce most forms of energy.

Demand for all three is increasing rapidly. To withstand current and future pressures, governments must ensure integrated and sustainable management of water, food and energy to balance the needs of people, nature and the economy.

A nexus approach helps us to better understand the complex and dynamic interrelationships between water, energy and food, so that we can use and manage our limited resources sustainably.

It depends, if transdisciplinary courses have been formally accredited as electives in your undergraduate or graduate program by your university then yes. However, some programs may treat the transdisciplinary courses as voluntary co-curricular inserts. Therefore, these courses are not counted towards degree requirements but are likely offering a certificate.

It depends on the number of study credits (or equivalent) allocated to a course and how credits are broken down into classroom hours, learning team discussions, and self-study. For example, a 1 credit course presents 4 hours study a week on average. Of course, this also depends on your learning team’s overall performance, etc.

How transdisciplinary research is defined and how it relates to other concepts remains a heavily debated issue. But there is broad consensus around seeking to value and integrate the knowledge from non-academic stakeholders. This implies ‘processes of mutual learning between science and society, which embodies a mission of science with society rather than for society’.

Transdisciplinary research is part of valorisation but it is specifically a form of research that directly engages external stakeholders. Creating and applying knowledge together with stakeholders can lead to and collaborating to find innovative solutions with more robust and socially desirable outcomes.

In transdisciplinary research, scientific disciplines (represented by individual researchers) and sectors of the life-world (represented by individual actors) are getting interrelated and transformed through a problem field.

We are listing funding opportunities on the Resources page. Increasingly funding bodies are including criteria of partnering with societal actors in research to their funding criteria.