Transdisciplinarity as Culture & Practice

Analysing Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research Projects in the Program proVISION

Project collaborators: Ulrike Felt, Judith Igelsböck, Andrea Schikowitz, Thomas Völker

BMWF/proVISION - 09/2009-06/2013

Project folder: transdisciplinarity_folder

Transdisciplinarity - A New Form of Scientific Practice and Culture?

During the last years the term transdisciplinarity – which is not older than 20 years - is hyped by funding agencies, politicians and university managers who share the opinion of transdisciplinary research as appropriate way to handle complex questions. It is claimed that science therefore has to transcend a certain disciplinary reduction and to integrate various kinds of knowledge and experiences (including extra-scientific knowledge) in order to frame both the definition of a problem and possible solutions according to the particular context. That contains an array of different expectations and demands for both research and non-scientific forms of knowledge production, which challenge all participants.

Project Goals - Understanding New Forms of Knowledge Production and of Relations between Science and Society

he project aims to gain empirically founded insights into the supposed variety of transdisciplinary practices and to contribute to a broader theoretical reflection about this new mode of knowledge production by going beyond single case studies. For this purpose an array of different projects of the funding program proVISION should be analysed. The programme is financed by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research and aims to implement Austria’s FORNE strategy (research for sustainable development). The projects of proVISION are considered as “proactive, take the ethical dimension into consideration and use participative methods. The programme seeks to establish longterm cooperation between science and practice that will provide solutions for politics, business and society“. In order to inquire the variety of this new phenomenon in detail we consider the programme and the projects of proVISION as a laboratory where new ways of knowledge production as well as new relations between science and society are probed. That contains not only new forms of knowledge but also a change in the handling of uncertainty and notknowing.

Six analytical foci should help to structure and sharpen the analysis of the transdisciplinary practices in the inquired projects. The questions are (1) how in such projects research objects and questions are negotiated and developed, (2) how different time schedules and structures converge, (3) how “transdisciplinary evidence” is produced, (4) which role language for the generation of knowledge and communication plays, (5) how sites of knowledge production frame the process of awareness and eventually (6) which meaning collaboration and togetherness gains in heterogeneous projects.

Methodological Approach

In order to analyse the various forms of transdisciplinary work and to shed light on a broader context of this new form of knowledge production we work with a combination of different qualitative social-science methods:

  • Interviews with participants of completed and ongoing projects
  • Analysis of the projects’ “output products”
  • Focus groups with project participants
  • Participation in selected project meetings
  • Analysis of the doctoral school of proVISION

Inducing and Facilitating Reflection - Trans-Disciplinary Relevance of the Project

Beyond the empirical analysis the project aims to contribute to a broader reflection about new forms of knowledge production and changing relations between science, society and politics. That also includes a changing handling of uncertainty and not-knowing. This reflection should develop and be shared during the research process together with the participants of the transdisciplinary projects and with the programme administration.

Presentations and Publications

Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2013): 'Growing Into What? The (Un-)disciplined Socialisation of Early Stage Researchers in Transdisciplinary Research'. Higher Education 65/4: 511-524. <Download>

Felt, Ulrike, Igelsböck, Judith, Schikowitz, Andrea and Völker, Thomas (2012) 'Challenging Participation in Sustainability Research.' International Journal of Deliberative Mechnaisms in Science 1/1: 4-34. <Download>

Felt, Ulrike, Judith Igelsböck, Andrea Schikowitz, and Thomas Völker (2011) 'The Problem Multiple - Constructing 'the Research Problem' in Transdisciplinary Project Contexts', in B. Hofstätter and G. Getzinger (eds), Conference Proceeding 10th Annual IAS-STS Conference: Critical Issues in Science and Technology Studies, 02.-03.05.2011, Graz (Graz, ias-sts). <Download Extended Abstract>

Igelsböck J, Felt U, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2011): Between Entanglement and Purification: Participatory Research Imagined and Practiced, Presentation@Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 2-5 November 2011, Cleveland, USA <Download Abstract>

Igelsböck J, Felt U, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2011): Entgrenzte Forschung? Presentation@Symposion "Ansätze zur Vermessung der Nachhaltigkeit", October 14 2011, Vienna, Austria, <Download>

Völker T (2011):  Monitoring and Preventing: On the Role of 'Socio-Scientific Imaginaries' in the Co-production of Science and Society, Presentation@Governing Futures. Imagining, Negotiating & Taming Emerging Technosciences, 22-24 September 2011, Vienna, Austria. <Download Abstract>

Schikowitz A, Felt U, Igelsböck J, Völker T (2011): Extending Problem-Definition, Evidence & Expertise? Participatory Research Imagined and Practiced, Presentation@Science and Democracy Network - Tenth Annual Meeting, June 6-July 3 2011, Cambridge, USA <Download Abstract>

Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2011): The Problem Multiple - Constructing 'the Research Problem' in Transdisciplinary Project Contexts, in: B. Hofstätter and G. Getzinger, Conference Proceeding 10th Annual IAS-STS Conference: Critical Issues in Science and Technology Studies. <Download>

Völker T, Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A (2011): The Problem Multiple - Constructing 'the Research Problem' in Transdisciplinary Project Contexts, Presentation@10th Annual IAS-STS Conference: Critical Issues in Science and Technology Studies, 2–3 May 2011, Graz, Austria

Felt U (2010): The Camel as a Boundary Object? Encounters Between Different Knowledge Cultures. Presentation@Workshop: Camels in Asia and North Africa – Interdisciplinary workshop on their significance in past and present, Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS), October 5, 2010.

Igelsböck J, Felt U, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2010): „Wanted! Research Partner with Problem“ - Transdisciplinary Research between Normative Imaginations and Practical Realisation, Presentation@EASST010 Conference – Practicing Science and Technology – Performing the Social, 2-4 Sept 2010, Trento, Italia. <download abstract>

Völker T, Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A (2010): Encountering transdisciplinarity as knowledge regime: On the possibilities and limits of socializing early stage researchers into hybrid knowledge contexts, Presentation@XVII ISA World Congress of Sociology; Sociology on the Move, 11-17 July, 2010 Gothenburg, Schweden. <download abstract>

Schikowitz A, Felt U, Igelsböck J, Völker T (2010): Growing into what? On the (un-) disciplined socialisation of young researchers in transdisciplinary, Presentation@Risky entanglements? Contemporary research cultures imagined and practiced, 9-11 June, Vienna, Austria. <download abstract>

Felt U (2010): Transdisciplinarity as Culture and Practice, In: GAIA Ökologische Perspektiven für Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft, 19/1(2010): 75–77.

Felt U (2010): Transdisciplinarity as Culture and Practice, Presentation@dokNE Evaluierung 2010, Gemeinsame Reflexion des Doktoratkollegs mit dem wissenschaftlichen Beirat zum Projektabschluss, Vienna, January 1, 2010.

Felt U, Igelsböck J, Schikowitz A, Völker T (2010) Querdenken gefragt?! Interdisziplinarität an Kontemporären Europäischen Universitäten zwischen Idealen und Realen Rahmenbedingungen, In: Paradigmata, Zeitschrift für Menschen und Diskurse, 1 (2010), Wien: Kulturverein Pangea, 94-99.

Felt U (2009): Tempor(e)alities in transdisciplinary working contexts, Presentation@ Network for Transdisciplinary Research Conference 2009, Bern, Switzerland.

Contact

Ulrike Felt
eMail: transdis.wissenschaftsforschung@univie.ac.at
Tel: +43-1-4277-49611