Cartoons: Wie inter- und transdisziplinäre Forschung garantiert scheitert
In inter- und transdisziplinären (ITD) Forschungsprojekten erfolgreich zusammenzuarbeiten, ist eine Herausforderung. Wie die Zusammenarbeit auf jeden Fall scheitert, illustriert eine Reihe von Cartoons auf humoristische Art. Die dargestellten Szenen sollen disziplinübergreifende Denkanstösse geben. Sie laden dazu ein, das eigene Verhalten zu überdenken und mit Teammitgliedern zu diskutieren, wie gute ITD-Forschung gelingen kann.
Szenen aus der inter- und transdisziplinären Forschung
Wie inter- und transdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit garantiert scheitert
AlphasD
Interdisziplinär
ArbeitsauftragD
Interdisziplinär
AutopilotD
Interdisziplinär
EisenbahnD
Interdisziplinär
EndloseDiskussionD
Interdisziplinär
HerdingCatsD
Interdisziplinär
KeinAperoD
Interdisziplinär
KompostD
Interdisziplinär
LEtatE
Interdisziplinär
NachwuchsD
Interdisziplinär
PerspektiveD
Interdisziplinär
SchleifenLassenD
Interdisziplinär
SiloD2
Interdisziplinär
SyntheseD
Interdisziplinär
UBootD
Interdisziplinär
Disziplinübergreifende Denkanstösse
Inter- und Transdisziplinäre Forschung ist in aller Munde und ist in immer mehr Forschungsanträgen vorgesehen. Doch die Zusammenarbeit zwischen verschiedenen Disziplinen sowie mit Akteuren aus Praxis und Politik bleibt eine Herausforderung – für alle Beteiligten, Projektleitende und Teammitglieder. Wie die Zusammenarbeit auf jeden Fall scheitert, illustriert eine Reihe von Cartoons auf humoristische Art. Denn die beste Medizin, um frustrierende Erfahrungen zu verarbeiten, ist ein vergnügtes Schmunzeln und das gemeinsame Lachen. Vielleicht fühlt sich der eine oder die andere sogar von den gezeichneten Szenen ertappt. So sollen die Cartoons disziplinübergreifende Denkanstösse geben. Sie laden dazu ein, das eigene Verhalten zu überdenken, mit anderen Forschenden ins Gespräch zu kommen und Wege zu finden, wie disziplinäre Grenzen überwunden werden können und Integration über Grenzen hinweg gelingen kann. Die Cartoons wurden schon mehrmals erfolgreich ausgestellt, unter anderem am Wasserforschungsinstitut Eawag, und der «International Transdisciplinarity (ITD) Conference» in Utrecht, Niederlande. Sie können für weitere Ausstellungen kostenlos mit Verweis auf die Urheberinnen und Urheber und deren Arbeit genutzt werden. Weitere Informationen hierzu weiter unten (siehe Nutzung der Cartoons).
Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Cartoons
Die Cartoon-Reihe basiert auf den Ergebnissen einer «Kopfstandstrategie», einer Umkehrtechnik, die im Rahmen einiger Workshops in mehreren ITD-Forschungsprogrammen eingesetzt wurde, um die emotional aufgeladene Herausforderung «Integration» aus einem anderen und leichteren Blickwinkel zu diskutieren. Die Teilnehmenden wurden gebeten, konkrete Verhaltensweisen, Einstellungen und Strategien zu erarbeiten, um sicherzustellen, dass Integration in ihren Programmen mit Sicherheit scheitert. Die Ergebnisse dieser Workshops wurden in einer Reihe von Cartoons festgehalten, die Projekt- und Programmleitenden sowie Teammitgliedern handlungsorientiertes Wissen darüber vermitteln, wie sie die Integration in der Praxis aktiv verhindern können.
Die Cartoon-Serie macht hier allerdings nicht halt: Sie lädt alle dazu ein, über die dargestellten Szenen nachzudenken und zu überlegen, wie diese verändert oder umgekehrt werden können, um Integration proaktiv zu ermöglichen. Konkrete Ansatzpunkte für Massnahmen zur Verbesserung von Rahmenbedingungen für Integration als auch Führungsstrategien zur Bewältigung der damit verbundenen Herausforderungen finden sich in zwei aus dem Projekt hervorgegangenen Publikationen:
Verwendung als Ausstellung: Die Cartoon-Reihe wurden bereits bei mehreren Gelegenheiten u.a. an der Eawag sowie im Rahmen der internationalen Inter- und Transdisziplinaritätskonferenz in Utrecht (Niederlande) 2024 ausgestellt und kann auch in Zukunft in anderen Kontexten kostenlos ausgestellt werden. Falls Sie eine Ausstellung der Cartoons organisieren möchten, müssen die Quelle/Autorinnen (siehe oben) genannt sowie zwei Einführungsplakate genutzt werden.
Teilen Sie uns gerne mit, in welchem Zusammenhang und zu welchem Zweck Sie die Cartoons verwendet oder eine Ausstellung organisiert haben, indem Sie eine E-Mail an Lisa Deutsch oder Sabine Hoffmann senden.
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Creating favorable conditions for inter- and transdisciplinary integration – an analytical framework and empirical insights
Complex global social-ecological challenges of our time such as climate change, biodiversity loss or, more recently, the Covid-19 pandemic can neither be comprehensively understood nor properly addressed by employing a single disciplinary or sectoral perspective. For this reason, more and more large inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) initiatives are on the rise, intending to open up the silo-like production of knowledge and to advance the integration of different fields of expertise within academia, but also across science, policy and practice. While the need for ITD initiatives in order to both understand and address the complexity of such global socio-ecological challenges has increasingly been acknowledged by research institutions, funders and public authorities, a question remains concerning the extent to which prevailing conditions suffice for conducting ITD research, particularly in terms of whether the envisioned integration of perspectives and actors really happen in practice. This paper embraces a holistic view on ITD integration by presenting both an analytical framework and empirical insights from three ITD initiatives based in Switzerland dealing with sustainable urban water management, (future) extreme events and cross-sectoral climate impacts and climate services in different socio-economic contexts. The framework is based on critical realist reasoning and employs a structure-agency lens by distinguishing conditions of integration at different structural levels, while also acknowledging the power of actors to shape integration and the respective structures. The paper thereby illustrates and helps diagnose the source of challenges experienced in living up to ITD integration endeavors and how these different structural levels are interrelated and impact ITD integration. We conclude by discussing entry points for action aimed at transforming currently unfavorable structures into favorable ones. We thereby intend to provide, in particular, insights for a wide range of actors interested in making sure that ITD initiatives intended to address the global social-ecological challenges of our time can realize their full integration potential in practice.
Deutsch, L.; Pohl, C.; Bresch, D. N.; Hoffmann, S. (2025) Creating favorable conditions for inter- and transdisciplinary integration – an analytical framework and empirical insights, Global Environmental Change, 91, 102963 (15 pp.), doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102963, Institutional Repository
Herding cats: integrative leadership strategies in inter- and transdisciplinary research programs
This paper focuses on the critical role of integrative leadership in inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research programs. ITD programs have become one of academia's responses to address contemporary sustainability challenges. Fulfilling the promise of such programs is extraordinarily challenging for all involved participants, but especially for program leaders who have to ensure that the perspectives of the involved program participants become truly integrated and that final and useful synthesis outputs are created. We present six core leadership challenges and respective strategies to address them to advance integration within ITD programs. These challenges include (1) mastering complexity and ambiguity, (2) advancing decision-making with lateral leadership, (3) ensuring responsibility and accountability, (4) setting program boundaries, (5) selecting suitable projects, and (6) dealing with misconceptions. We derived these challenges and respective strategies from both leading and studying in-depth three ITD programs focusing on sustainability issues in Switzerland. With this paper, we intend to promote awareness about the range of leadership challenges in ITD programs and provide actionable knowledge, which can support in particular fellow and future leaders, but also funders and heads of research institutions in their efforts to realize the integrative potential of such programs.
Deutsch, L.; Björnsen, A.; Fischer, A. M.; Hama, A. M.; Zimmermann, N. E.; Zurbrügg, C.; Hoffmann, S. (2025) Herding cats: integrative leadership strategies in inter- and transdisciplinary research programs, Sustainability Science, 20, 95-115, doi:10.1007/s11625-024-01585-4, Institutional Repository
Practicing integration in inter- and transdisciplinary research: the role of enabling conditions and integrative leadership
Given the complexity of contemporary societal challenges such as climate change, sustainability transformations and pandemics, the question of how these challenges can be adequately addressed has become increasingly urgent in recent years. In the highly differentiated societies of the 21st century, there is generally no shortage of experts who can make a valuable contribution to addressing these problems. However, what tends to be lacking is a meaningful integration of these individual perspectives across disciplinary boundaries (interdisciplinarity) as well as the integration of knowledge from science, policy and practice (transdisciplinarity) in order to avoid a one-sided understanding of and solution to the aforementioned challenges. For this reason, more and more inter- and transdisciplinary research programs are being set up to address societally relevant issues by bundling several projects under one roof and involving a large number of different disciplines and stakeholders. However, this integration does not take place automatically, but must be proactively encouraged, fostered and led. This dissertation aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding as well as the practical implementation of inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) integration in research programs and projects by embracing three research foci: (a) the role of conditions under which ITD integration takes place (structures), (b) the role of integrative leadership to advance ITD integration processes (agency), and (c) the role of integrative methods to facilitate ITD integration (means). [...]
Integration experts and expertise are crucial for unfolding the full potential of inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research. Expanding on the concept of ITD integration, this entry focuses on integration experts, who lead, administer, manage, monitor, assess, accompany and/or advise others on integration across different scientific disciplines (i.e., interdisciplinary integration) as well as across science, policy and practice (i.e., transdisciplinary integration). The entry identifies the diverse roles integration experts play in ITD research projects or programs as integrative leaders, bridge builders, boundary crossers, translators, catalysts, facilitators, contributors, mediators, advisors, or evaluators. It also discloses the personal qualities (e.g., curiosity, sociability, creativity, reflexivity, humility) and expertise (e.g., contributory expertise, interactional expertise, referred expertise) integration experts bring in to realize—together with all other project or program members—the integrative potential of ITD projects or programs.
Hoffmann, S.; Deutsch, L.; O’Rourke, M. (2024) Integration experts and expertise, In: Darbellay, F. (Eds.), Elgar encyclopedia of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, 273-276, doi:10.4337/9781035317967.ch60, Institutional Repository
Integrate the integrators! A call for establishing academic careers for integration experts
Integration is often considered the core challenge and the defining characteristic of inter- and trans-disciplinary (ITD) research. Given its importance, it is surprising that the current system of higher education does not provide permanent positions for integration experts; i.e., experts who lead, administer, manage, monitor, assess, accompany, and/or advise others on integration within ITD projects or programs. Based on empirical results of an ITD 2019 Conference Workshop entitled "Is there a new profession of integration experts on the rise?" held in Gothenburg, Sweden, and our own experience in leading and studying ITD integration, the present article sheds light on the overarching question, "What are integration experts?", thus contributing to the emerging literature on integration and integration expertise. We use direct quotes from participants to substantiate workshop results and triangulate them with recent literature on ITD research as well as Science of Team Science (SciTS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). We conclude our article by discussing possible unintended consequences of establishing academic careers for integration experts, and suggest four complementary ways to support them, while mitigating potentially negative consequences: (a) establishing an international Community of Practice (CoP) to foster peer-to-peer exchange among integration experts, create greater visibility, and develop ideas for transforming academic structures; (b) studying academic careers of integration experts to provide empirical evidence of "successful" examples and disclose different ways of establishing related academic positions; (c) funding respective positions and aligning metrics for ITD research to foster integration within ITD projects or programs; and (d) engaging in collaborative dialog with academic institutions and funding agencies to present empirical results and lessons learnt from (a) and (b) to support them in establishing and legitimating careers for integration experts. If academia is to be serious about addressing the most pressing environmental and societal problems of our time, it needs to integrate its integrators.
Hoffmann, S.; Deutsch, L.; Thompson Klein, J.; O'Rourke, M. (2022) Integrate the integrators! A call for establishing academic careers for integration experts, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9, 147 (10 pp.), doi:10.1057/s41599-022-01138-z, Institutional Repository
Leading inter- and transdisciplinary research: lessons from applying theories of change to a strategic research program
Theory of Change (ToC) has been promoted as a useful tool in sustainability research for visioning, planning, communication, monitoring, evaluation and learning. It involves a mapping of steps towards a desired long-term goal supplemented with continuous reflection on how and why change is expected to happen in a particular context. However, there is limited reported experience with the development and application of ToCs in inter- and transdisciplinary research contexts. While some previous publications have focused on ex-post application, there has been little discussion about the process of developing and using ToCs in strategic planning and monitoring in large inter- and transdisciplinary research programs. This article reports challenges and lessons learned from the experience of developing and using ToCs in the inter- and transdisciplinary research program Wings (Water and sanitation innovations for non-grid solutions). Challenges include (1) managing time constraints, (2) balancing between concrete and abstract discussions, (3) ensuring diversity in group composition, (4) fluctuating between reservations and appreciation, and (5) fulfilling both service and science roles while leading the ToC process. The experience highlights the importance of alternating formal and informal interaction formats throughout the process, ensuring heterogenous group formation, involving early career scientists, being responsive to emergent needs and making the added value of developing and using ToCs explicit and tangible for all participants. Although these lessons are mainly derived from developing ToCs within the interdisciplinary program team, they can support other programs in both their inter- and transdisciplinary research endeavors.
Deutsch, L.; Belcher, B.; Claus, R.; Hoffmann, S. (2021) Leading inter- and transdisciplinary research: lessons from applying theories of change to a strategic research program, Environmental Science and Policy, 120, 29-41, doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2021.02.009, Institutional Repository
