Looking back at the TRED 2023 conference

Contact person: Jillian Student, jillian.student@wur.nl 

Looking back at the TRED 2023 conference

For three days, people gathered online and/or in person to inspire, interact, and integrate on topics related to transdisciplinary collaborations. Here is a short overview of moments we co-created together.

Inspire Monday

We started the event online, which gave the opportunity for speakers and participants around the world to share ideas. Moderated by Simone Ritzer (Wageningen Dialogues), this online day opened up a discussion about the current hot topic issues identified by speakers Gabriele Bammer (ANU), Arjen Wals (WUR), and Fréjus Thoto (ACED)- questions arose about how and whether to institutionalize transdisciplinarity in universities while deinstitutionalizing learning and how to make transdisciplinary collaborations real instead of a thing that only exists on paper. Afterwards, participants discussed in breakout rooms what inspired them to collaborate and how they interpreted the hot topics. During three streams, participants could go deeper into the themes 1) repoliticizing collaborations and how to consider equity, justice, and fair practices, 2) important considerations for setting the scene and continuing hybrid research collaborations (e.g. different types of icebreakers, design-led approaches, and agenda-setting), and 3) opportunities for collaborative learning.

Interact Tuesday

Interaction was truly the theme of the day. The day started in an unusual way with the co-hosts Jillian Student (WIMEK) and Corinne Lamain (CUCo) leading a dance that the participants joined in and would further be co-created throughout the rest of the conference. Then dual keynotes Anita Hardon (WUR) and Caroline Nevejan (Chief Science Officer, City of Amsterdam) shared experiences of the messiness of collaborations, sometimes simple things have to be discussed multiple times (such as not mowing over important nature areas), while other interactions can develop rapidly (a website that enables people and researchers to find each other to work on urban challenges City Deal Kennis Maken - openresearch.amsterdam)

Then, participants took the lead during interactive discussion sessions, which took multiple forms such as human spectrograms, drawing activities, and world cafes. The interactive discussions prompted participants to reflect on different collaborative dilemmas, consider how to facilitate diversity and inclusion, review a co-designed transdisciplinary course, and look at different virtue roles among other topics.

In the afternoon, participants explored their co-creative rhythm. After making Haikus on interaction during the plenary, participants tried out different approaches in the hands-on explorations, which included looking at creating trust, storying telling, tdToolbox, liberating structures, serious games, and research question design card game among others.

Integrate Wednesday 

On this day, society and the collaboration between society and research was central. Katie Minderhoud (PBL) encouraged participants during her keynote to reflect on the different roles they can have in collaborative processes. This was followed by an activity where participants drew their stories of being part of a process of integrating knowledge (i.e. collaboration), which they shared with each other in small groups.

The main activity of the day was the mini-hackathons. Through mini-hackathons, the participants got the opportunity to experience some of the realities of transdisciplinary collaborations. They did this by working together on one of the four caregiver’s challenges and trying out different tools for collaborative processes. The topic included: alternative approaches to tackle participation fatigue; developing an app in which people from society are linked to researchers; investigating opportunities for SMEs to use AI; and making a dental practice circular. The mini-hackathons illustrated the differences between realities and idealized notions of col collaborative processes. The messy experiences of integrating people, knowledge, and perspectives gave participants the opportunity to not only talk about transdisciplinary collaborations, but to do and reflect on them.

Background

Climate change, the transition to a circular economy, and issues concerning human health, are examples of challenges we need to address in our society these days. These issues are both urgent and complex and require the integration of different (scientific) knowledge. However, for many challenges, scientific perspectives alone are not enough. Societal knowledge is needed to understand and define problems, identify alternatives, evaluate strategies, and design and implement processes.

But when, how, with whom, and even why we should integrate knowledge are not always clear. Moreover, although transdisciplinarity requires (new forms of) collaboration, many researchers and societal members feel alone in their endeavours.

The Transdisciplinary Research, Education and Dialogue initiative (TRED) seeks to further transdisciplinary science through creating a safe space for dialogue, unpacking theories, practices and essentials of knowledge integrations.

We look forward to co-creating space for collaborative research and learning with you.

Financial support 

The conference was financially supported by EWUU, the alliance of:

• Eindhoven University of Technology
• Wageningen University and Research
• Utrecht University
• UMC Utrecht

Additional info on Transdisciplinarity

WIMEK puts its vision into practice by initiating and participating in some large transdisciplinary initiatives, such as:

INREF programmes, a WUR fund to tackle the world's pressing development-related social problems by developing innovative interdisciplinary and participatory approaches

The Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions AMS, a collaboration of WUR, TUD, MIT, local government and business partners

Water Nexus, an NWO-STW research programme of 6 Million Euro, that ran from January 2015 to 2020, and was supported by 25 partners from multinational and small/middle sized companies, consultancy firms, research institutes, water boards, and two Ministries.

In 2021 WIMEK hired a postdoc, Jillian Student, for a two-years position to strengthen Wageningen University's position as a globally leading knowledge hub on inter- and transdisciplinary theory and methods in the field of climate and environment.