Three lessons for mainstreaming transdisciplinarity

“Are there similar challenges, responsibilities, and methods in transdisciplinarity across countries, scales, contexts and actor types?
In exploring five transdisciplinary case studies from projects on the topics of the water-energy-food-environment nexus and climate change adaptation, we identified three main lessons learned. These were common across the cases from South Africa, India, Greece, Latvia and Denmark, despite their different contexts, types of actors and project structures. These lessons were shared in a workshop at the 2024 Sustainability, Research and Innovation (SRI) Congress in Finland.

Lesson 1 Trust and relationship-building are essential – Trust is a pivotal factor in enabling collaboration across different kinds of actors. Those leading transdisciplinary approaches must show respect and value all actors, which can be done through relationship-building activities, but also by actively listening and ensuring their opinions are being taken seriously within the project. Building trust and relationships early on supports a fruitful collaboration for the long-term and may lead to new project ideas and implementation of practical outcomes. This lesson is also linked to Lesson #2, as “using” stakeholders or actors for their data or validation of solutions (extractive research or one-way relationship) should be avoided at all costs. Otherwise, trust can quickly disintegrate and lead to ineffective projects and outcomes.”

(Citation: Andrews, L.M., Willaarts, B., Panagopoulos, A., et. al. – Three lessons for mainstreaming transdisciplinary – https://i2insights.org (2024)20 August)