Principles for Designing Transdisciplinary Research

In the information or knowledge society, there is a need for transdisciplinary research, i. e. research that deals with complex life-world problems. Transdisciplinary projects aim to come up with practice-oriented solutions that serve what is perceived to be the common good. In order to achieve this, they transcend disciplinary boundaries and include the perspectives of public agencies, the business community and civil society in the research process. This process is therefore particularly challenging for those involved. This book is proposed by the transdisciplinarity-net, which is a project supported by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. It offers a means of designing transdisciplinary research. The tools presented here help structure the research process, in particular with a view to: • adequately reducing the complexity of a problem field, • taking into account the multiplicity of perspectives, • embedding research into the social context, and • adapting concepts and methods in the course of the research process. This publication shows how these tools can be used in the three phases of a transdisciplinary research process: identifying and structuring the problem, analyzing the problem and bringing results to fruition.

Christian Pohl, with a PhD in environmental sciences and a habilitation at the University of Bern, is co-director of the Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab) of the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich.