By Gemma O’Sullivan.
What is involved in transdisciplinary learning?
The transdisciplinary learning process can be seen as the development of two capacities: knowledge integration and actionable knowledge (closing the knowledge-action gap).
Integration capacity refers to the ability to integrate knowledge from different disciplines, epistemologies, cultures, communities and individuals across society to collectively achieve a greater understanding of, and solutions for, complex problems.
Actionable knowledge capacity refers to the ability to create knowledge that leads to action.
The two capacities―integration capacity and actionable knowledge capacity―are connected and enabled by a ballast of interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive competencies. The ballast is, as the name suggests, something heavy placed in the bottom of a vessel to keep it steady. We can therefore visualise the transdisciplinary learning process as a U, as shown in the figure below.
The model of the transdisciplinary learning process as U-shaped learning is based on the results of a literature review of transdisciplinary learning in higher education (O’Sullivan, 2023; 2025).
In essence, transdisciplinary learning involves a defined problem-solving process, where students, academics and extra-academic actors learn as a group to develop or enhance competencies to integrate knowledge and bridge the knowledge-action gap.
In this context, students are not only undergraduates or postgraduates, but may also be researchers themselves. Extra-academic actors are those who are connected to transdisciplinary work on challenges but who are external to the academy. Extra-academic actors may have:
- lived experience of a complex societal issue, eg., flooding in a city;
- professional experience of the complex societal issue, eg., engineers;
- extra-academic research expertise of the complex societal issue, eg., private consultancy firms;
- a political interest, eg., local, regional or global political groups, activist or otherwise.
Integration capacity more specifically involves:
- co-producing and integrating knowledge;
- showing how knowledge from multiple disciplines must be brought to bear in order to solve a problem;
- framing complex problems using diverse perspectives;
- jointly formulating problems with extra-academic actors.
Actionable knowledge capacity more specifically involves:
- implementing and assessing societal and scientific outcomes;
- developing solutions for real world problems;
- applying concepts in the real world.
These integration and actionable knowledge capacities are supported by the development (or presence) of interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive competencies. Transdisciplinary practice therefore requires individuals to possess the inter- and intra-personal and cognitive competencies to work with diverse groups of people, with diverse sources of information in response to diverse multi-faceted problems or challenges.
The list of competencies in the literature on transdisciplinarity is large: communication, problem solving, collaboration, reflexivity, openness, flexibility, empathy, open-mindedness, sensitivity, social skills, facilitation, knowledge brokerage, assertiveness, the ability to build trust and dialogue. This happens within a team and therefore team knowledge, skills and attitudes are highly important.
Transdisciplinary competencies can only meaningfully be developed within a transdisciplinary setting and when the group co-creates their understanding of the process they are engaged in, ie., they are informed about transdisciplinary methodologies and are self-reflective and active in process making.
Conclusion
Learning process design needs to include both the development of interpersonal, intrapersonal and cognitive competencies and clear pathways to developing the capacity to integrate knowledge and act on it. The specifics of how this can be achieved still need considerable development.
Within educational practice, the T-shaped professional has been promoted as a model to describe individuals who possess disciplinary expertise in one area (the vertical column) and the ability to adopt the perspectives of other disciplines (the horizontal column). I argue that transdisciplinarity should rather be conceived of as a U-shaped model for the reasons outlined above.
What do you think? How do the capacities and competencies presented here fit with your experience? Are there other points that you would add? And do you agree that U-shaped is more useful than T-shaped when considering transdisciplinary education?
To find out more:
O’Sullivan, G. (2023). Shaping transdisciplinary, challenge-based education using knowledge creating teams from five European universities: A realist evaluation. Doctoral dissertation, Trinity College Dublin: Dublin, Ireland. (Online – open access): http://hdl.handle.net/2262/103044
O’Sullivan, G. (2025). U-shaped learning: A new model for transdisciplinary education. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12, 182. (Online – open access) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04478-8. Some of the text is taken verbatim from this paper, which also provides extensive references.
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution or the work on which the contribution is based. (For i2Insights policy on artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Gemma O’Sullivan D.Ed. is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She works with diverse groups of academic and extra-academic actors to create, test and develop integrative methodologies to drive action. Her passion is to close the knowledge-action gap in service of the common good.