Dispositions

Towards fair transdisciplinary collaborations that honour epistemic justice

By Annisa Triyanti, Barbara van Paassen, Corinne Lamain, Jessica Duncan, Jillian Student, Jonas Collen Ladeia Torrens and Nina de Roo

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1. Annisa Triyanti; 2. Barbara van Paassen; 3. Corinne Lamain; 4. Jessica Duncan; 5. Jillian Student; 6. Jonas Collen Ladeia Torrens; 7. Nina de Roo  (biographies)

What principles need to be upheld to fund and support fair, inclusive, and equitable transdisciplinary collaborations? What competences and attitudes are required for transdisciplinary collaborations to foster epistemic justice? And what do mushrooms have to do with this?!

It is widely acknowledged that to address complex societal problems and harness plural ways of knowing, a wider range of actors, perspectives and types of knowledge are needed than is traditionally the case in other forms of knowledge creation. Transdisciplinary collaborations are different from traditional forms of science in:

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Competencies for systems thinking practitioners. Part 2: Skills and behaviours

Edited by Gabriele Bammer

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What skills and behaviours are required by those seeking to provide expert systemic analysis, advice and facilitation to support decision-makers in understanding and addressing complex problems?

This is the second of two blog posts presenting the systems thinking competencies provided by the UK Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (no date) and completes an overview of what decision makers should be able to expect from systems thinking practitioners, along with the knowledge, skills and behaviour competencies such systems thinking practitioners should have. The first blog post provided overall expectations of what systems thinking practitioners should be able to do and knowledge competencies.

Skills competencies

Skills in 11 areas are required for a systems thinking practitioner.

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Skilful conversations for integration

By Rebecca Freeth and Liz Clarke

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1. Rebecca Freeth (biography)
2. Liz Clarke (biography)

Interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex problems is challenging! In particular, interdisciplinary communication can be very difficult – how do we bridge the gulf of mutual incomprehension when we are working with people who think and talk so very differently from us? What skills are required when mutual incomprehension escalates into conflict, or thwarts decision making on important issues?

It is often at this point that collaborations lose momentum. In the absence of constructive or productive exchange, working relationships stagnate and people retreat to the places where they feel safest: their own disciplines, their offices, or the colleagues who are on their ‘side’. As a consequence, prospects for meaningful collaboration and integration dwindle.

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Leading large transdisciplinary projects

By Sanford D. Eigenbrode, Lois Wright Morton, and Timothy Martin

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1. Sanford D. Eigenbrode (biography)
2. Lois Wright Morton (biography)
3. Timothy Martin (biography)

What’s required to lead exceptionally large projects involving many dozens of participants from various scientific disciplines (including biophysical, social, and economic), multiple stakeholders, and efforts spanning a gamut from discovery to implementation? Such projects are common when investigating social-ecological systems which are inherently complex and large in spatial and temporal scales. Problems are commonly multifaceted, with incomplete or apparently contradictory knowledge, stakeholders with divergent positions, and large economic or social consequences.

Leaders of such very large projects confront unique challenges in addition to those inherent to directing interdisciplinary efforts:

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Overcoming a paradox? Preparing students for transdisciplinary environments

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Machiel Keestra (biography)

By Machiel Keestra

How can we adequately prepare and train students to navigate transdisciplinary environments? How can we develop hybrid spaces in our universities that are suitable for transdisciplinary education?

These questions were considered by a plenary panel, which I organised and chaired at the International Transdisciplinarity Conference 2017 at Leuphana University, Germany. Three major educational requirements were identified:

  • long-term collaborations with businesses, as well as non-governmental, governmental and community organisations
  • teaching particular dispositions and competencies
  • preparing students for intercultural endeavours.

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Transkillery! What skills are needed to be a boundary crosser?

By Dena Fam, Tanzi Smith and Dana Cordell

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1. Dena Fam (biography)
2. Tanzi Smith (biography)
3. Dana Cordell (biography)

What skills and dispositions are required by researchers and practitioners in transdisciplinary research and practice in crossing boundaries, sectors and paradigms?

The insights here come from interviews with 14 internationally recognized transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners, chosen from a diverse range of research and practice-based perspectives.

Here we focus on:

1) skills for specific tasks such as facilitation of a meeting, crafting a well-written report, and communicating effectively across disciplines; and,

2) dispositions, attitudes, orientations and temperaments of an effective researcher/practitioner, i.e., as a way of being.

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What makes a translational ecologist? Part 3: Dispositional attributes

By the Translational Ecology Group 

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Translational Ecology Group (participants)

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Four related blog posts on translational ecology:
…
Introduction to translational ecology
…
What makes a translational ecologist – Part 1: Knowledge / Part 2: Skills / Part 3: Dispositional attributes (this blog post)

This is the third and final blog post considering competencies to make ecologists more effective in informing and supporting policy and practice change (see the right sidebar for links to all four related blog posts on translational ecology). In other words these are the competencies underpinning a new discipline of translational ecology.

The two previous blog posts examined the knowledge and skills required in three major areas:

  1. Socio-ecological systems
  2. Communication across boundaries, with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists
  3. Engagement with beneficiaries, stakeholders and other scientists.

This blog post uses the same three areas to examine the dispositional attributes required.

What are dispositional attributes?

Each person’s internal cognitive and moral qualities are collectively known as dispositions.

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Working together for better outcomes: Lessons for funders, researchers, and researcher partners

By Kit Macleod

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Kit Macleod (biography)

As a community of interdisciplinary practice we need to share our collective knowledge on how funders, researchers and wider research partners can work together for better outcomes to address pressing societal challenges.

Funding interdisciplinary research: improving practices and processes

Seven key challenges to funding interdisciplinary research include:

  1. No agreed criteria defining ‘excellence’ in interdisciplinary research.
  2. Poor agreement of the benefits and costs of interdisciplinary ways of working.
  3. No agreement on how much or what kind of additional funding support is required for interdisciplinary research.
  4. No consensus on terminology.
  5. No clearly delineated college of peers from which to select appropriate reviewers.
  6. Limited appropriate interdisciplinary peer review processes.
  7. Restrictions within funding organisations concerning budget allocations and support for interdisciplinary research.

A guidance note for research funders then suggests ways forward from the pre-call stage to evaluation of completed research projects.

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