Institutionalisation – Integration and Implementation Insights

Six lessons from Iran for strengthening cross-disciplinary research

September 26, 2023

By Reza Dehnavieh

How can universities in countries which have centralised and traditional discipline-based systems encourage cross-disciplinary research and education?

Here I describe lessons from the work of the Institute for Futures Studies in Health, which is an Iran-based organization specializing in foresight activities in Iran’s health system. The Institute is affiliated with Kerman University of Medical Sciences, and was launched in 2012. The Institute utilizes knowledge management in combination with the development of a more desirable future as the key concept at the core of its identity and follows four main goals:

evidence-based decision-making,
networking among stakeholders within and outside the health sector,
developing capabilities and empowerment of stakeholders, and
outlining strategic perspectives on health.

A framework for building transdisciplinary expertise

August 15, 2023August 8, 2023

By ANU Transdisciplinarity Working Group

mosaic_authors_anu-transdisciplinarity-working-group — Author biographies

What expertise should everyone have in order to effectively play their role in tackling complex societal and environmental problems? Is there a framework that can help everyone develop rudimentary skills and provide a pathway to enhancing them as and when necessary?

We were charged with addressing these questions, not for everyone, but for all undergraduates at our university, The Australian National University (ANU). In particular, we were asked to ensure that all ANU graduates would be able to work with others to understand and creatively address amorphous and complex problems. More formally, this was described as proposing how undergraduates could develop the “Capability to Employ Discipline-based Knowledge in Transdisciplinary Problem Solving.”

A practical framework for transforming academia through inter- and transdisciplinarity / Un marco práctico para transformar el mundo académico mediante la interdisciplinariedad y la transdisciplinariedad

August 15, 2023July 18, 2023

By Bianca Vienni Baptista and Danilo Streck

authors_bianca-vienni-baptista_danilo-streck — 1. Bianca Vienni Baptista (biography)
2. Danilo Streck (biography)

A Spanish version of this post is available.

How can the role of inter- and transdisciplinarity be re-imagined at higher education institutions?

This i2Insights contribution presents a practical framework developed with Julie Thompson Klein and based on fifteen case studies from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America that described how inter- and transdisciplinarity have been institutionalised in higher education.

Towards a theory of change to institutionalise integration experts and expertise

August 3, 2023June 6, 2023

By The Aeschiried Integrators

authors_the-aeschiried-integrators — Author biographies

Integration experts and expertise are crucial for realising the full potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research. However, the expertise of those who lead integration is poorly recognized in the current academic system and these academics often experience a range of impediments to their careers. What can be done to recognise integration experts and expertise and to support the careers of such experts?

We define integration experts as specialists “who lead, administer, manage, monitor, assess, accompany, and/or advise others on integration” in order to achieve the full potential of inter- and transdisciplinary research (Hoffmann et al. 2022).

This i2Insights contribution presents the results of a pilot workshop held in Aeschiried, a mountain village in Switzerland, in February 2023 to develop a theory of change focused on Germany and Switzerland to achieve the following:

Institutionalizing evidence-informed policy-making in Latin America and the Caribbean / Institucionalizando la toma de decisiones informadas por evidencias en Latinoamérica y el Caribe/ Institucionalizando a formulação de políticas informadas em evidências na América Latina e Caribe

June 16, 2023May 9, 2023

By Directors and Coordinators of the Latin American and the Caribbean Evidence Hub

authors_directors-coordinators-latin-american-and-caribbean-evidence-hub — Author biographies

A Spanish version and a Portuguese version of this post are available

How is the routine use of evidence in policy in Latin America and the Caribbean progressing? How is it being institutionalized?

We provide a brief history of key initiatives to institutionalize evidence-informed policy making mechanisms in the region.Research and policy interface

* The Latin American and the Caribbean Evidence Hub is an interdisciplinary and trilingual team who work together to create a dynamic and diverse community that articulates and mobilizes producers, intermediaries and users of knowledge in the region for decision making informed by the best available evidence. In 2022, it organized workshops with multi-country stakeholders and a regional meeting.

Seventh annual review

January 18, 2023December 13, 2022

By Gabriele Bammer

gabriele-bammer_nov-2021 — Gabriele Bammer (biography)

This annual end-of-year review presents the highlights from 2022 and examines how i2Insights is progressing in building a global community and a repository for sharing research tools to tackle complex societal and environmental problems.

There is currently no other repository that provides easy access to a range of research tools for addressing complex problems in ways that bring together systems thinking, transdisciplinarity, action research, post-normal science, implementation science, design thinking and many more approaches.

Progress is in the right direction, but the i2Insights team is keen to go further and faster. How can the number of contributions and readers be increased? What would you find helpful for i2Insights to do more of or differently? How can we promote productive discussions on more contributions? If you have thought about contributing but have not, what’s stopping you?

This is the last blog post for 2022. i2Insights returns on January 10, 2023 (Australian time).

Three narratives describing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers

June 16, 2023October 11, 2022

By Laura Norton, Giulia Sonetti and Mauro Sarrica

authors_laura-norton_giulia-sonetti_mauro-sarrica — 1. Laura Norton (biography)
2. Giulia Sonetti (biography)
3. Mauro Sarrica (biography)

How do inter- and trans- disciplinary researchers talk about themselves? Do these narratives disrupt the status-quo and help integrate inter- and trans- disciplinarity into current academic institutions?

Below, we describe three narratives that can be applied to how inter- and trans- disciplinary researchers talk about themselves, namely as:

Heroes
Refugees in sanctuaries
Navigators of shifting borders.

Heroes or the individual escape narrative

This narrative sees inter- and trans- disciplinarity as an individual escape. It focuses on internal characteristics that act as drivers to leave a disciplinary context, which is a box, a silo, a shape that hinders researchers’ ways of conceiving and doing science.

Insights into interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in India and Brazil

August 9, 2022August 9, 2022

By Marcel Bursztyn and Seema Purushothaman

authors_marcel-bursztyn_seema-purushothaman — 1. Marcel Bursztyn (biography)
2. Seema Purushothaman (biography)

How are interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity faring in India and Brazil? How do they differ from interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in the Global North? Are there particular lessons to be drawn from India and Brazil for the global interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary communities?

India and Brazil are among the most prominent countries of the Global South in the worldwide academic scene. Both have problems in common, but they have also singularities.

The focus in both countries at the institutional level tends to be on what is referred to as interdisciplinarity. The emergence of a new generation of liberal universities and other academic institutions open to interdisciplinary scholarship has allowed a small cohort of interdisciplinary scholars to emerge.

i2Insights as a repository

October 18, 2022July 5, 2022

By Gabriele Bammer

How is Integration and Implementation Insights (i2Insights) shaping up as a repository of resources useful for tackling complex societal and environmental problems?

i2Insights has two major purposes:

connecting a community of researchers to each other, and
building a repository or knowledge bank of resources.

i2Insights has set out to achieve both purposes using the format of blog, with short, easy-to-read contributions from researchers located anywhere in the world, and with encouragement to peers to comment. We have sought to summarise these purposes in the tagline for i2S:

A community blog providing research resources for understanding and acting on complex real-world problems

A collaborative vision and pathways for transforming academia

December 19, 2022March 8, 2022

By The Care Operative and “Transforming Academia” workshop participants at 2021 International Transdisciplinarity Conference

authors_care-group_workshop-participants_transforming-academia — Author biographies

What do we want academia to be like in 2050? Is academia on the right track? What will it take to agree on and realize a joint vision that can steer life in science towards a more sustainable and agreeable place to work, to learn, to share and to appreciate knowledge?

The issues raised here are based on a workshop with more than 40 participants at the International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2021. The discussion was initiated and hosted by the Careoperative, a leadership collective motivated to explore, embody and pollinate transformational sustainability and transdisciplinary research.

Careoperative’s discussion springboard

As a starting point for the discussion, Careoperative members shared ideas on how the current academic system discourages the kinds of leadership required for sustainability transformations (Care et al. 2021).

Can cultural hegemony explain resistance to transdisciplinarity?

June 23, 2023March 1, 2022

By Livia Fritz, Ulli Vilsmaier and Dena Fam

author_livia-fritz_ulli-vilsmaier_dena-fam — 1. Livia Fritz (biography)
2. Ulli Vilsmaier (biography)
2. Dena Fam (biography)

What are the reasons for resistance to transdisciplinary research and education? And what insights can Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist party in the early 20^th Century, offer?

We argue that one of the main reasons for resistance is that transdisciplinarity subverts well-established and often unquestioned structures, practices and values in academia. In particular, transdisciplinarity challenges persistent organizational structures, mechanisms of knowledge production and evaluation criteria based on disciplinary models of research and higher education.

An important step forward in overcoming resistance is shedding light on its root causes. We propose the concept of cultural hegemony, building on Gramsci’s concept, to make these root causes visible, able to be articulated, and tangible.

Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony

Implementing transdisciplinary research in post-Soviet Armenia and Georgia

August 3, 2023January 25, 2022

By Tigran Keryan and Tamara Mitrofanenko

authors_tigran-keryan_tamara-mitrofanenko — 1. Tigran Keryan (biography)
2. Tamara Mitrofanenko (biography)

What characterized the Soviet academic system and what is its legacy in two post-Soviet countries, Armenia and Georgia? What would it take for transdisciplinarity to flourish in those countries?

The Soviet academic system

During the Soviet era, the natural and technical sciences were prioritized, while the social sciences and humanities were marginalized. In addition, research functions were removed from the responsibilities of academic institutions and placed under the authority of the Academies of Sciences, which are central state-governed research institutes. Thus, the role of the universities was reduced to teaching, undermining the research capacity of higher educational institutions up to this day. The curriculum was centralized, focusing on Soviet propaganda and leaving little space for innovation. On the upside, this system ensured the absence of tuition fees in all universities and guaranteed employment for all graduates.