There is a huge amount written on trabsdisciplinarity and a variety of programs have implemented it to tackle different complex issues. Luis has suggested a few. There was a good representation of trans-disciplinary scholars at the global EcoHealth Forum in Mexico this past December, including a workshop put on by a group of students & faculty members from U of Hawaii. Their focus is more "hard science" (conservation, emerging diseases) but they are wide open on integrating everything else into addressing those questions. http://www2.jabsom.hawaii.edu/igert/?page_id=179
The book, The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty & Managing for Sustainability (Columbia U Press, 2008) which I helped write & edit with the late James Kay (systems design engineer) and Nina-Marie Lister (an urban planner) has a lot in it. Anything by Val Brown works. The nuts and bolts of how to work this in siloed institutions is best worked out with colleagues on a case by case basis, and emails are often less than helpful. There are no silver bullet solutions but there are LOTS of people who have worked it out case by case. The Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health (www.copeh-canada.org) offers a graduate course which draws on many of these resources. David Waltner-Toews Department of Population Medicine University of Guelph http://www.ovc.uoguelph.ca/personal/ecosys Veterinarians without Borders/ Vétérinaires sans Frontières - Canada www.vwb-vsf.ca Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health www.nesh.ca Tel: 519-824-4120 ext 54745 Cell: 519-546-3204 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Luis Gutierrez" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 11:26:40 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [IntSci] advice on transdisciplinary research [email protected] wrote: > 1. advice on transdisciplinary research (idil gaziulusoy) > I am a PhD student in Sustainability Engineering Programme, University of > Auckland, New Zealand. I am seeking some advice from those who are doing, > have finalised or are supervising/have supervised transdisciplinary PhD > projects in sustainability related topics. My research aim is to develop a > scenario method for product development teams of manufacturing companies so > that they can plan for and get involved in long-term system-level > innovation. The literatures I consult cover sustainability science, system > innovation theory, innovation management, product design, futures studies > and some emerging combinations of these areas like "design futures" (my > label, not convention). Hello Idil, You will find that nothing is unrelated to sustainability, let alone sustainable development. > 1. How to manage the research process since generally the methodology is not > determined at the outset but evolves? How to avoid significant time-losses > due to doing something completely unnecessary for the overall research or > not doing something necessary timely enough? I have found helpful to plan backwards, i.e., first I define the desired end product (for example, the content of a dissertation) then go back and determine what information I need to write the final content; and I keep going back recursively until I get to things I know or know I can get. > 2. How to make sure that everyone in the committee share a common > understanding about your research? The committee members are not always > well-informed about characteristics of transdisciplinary research but > they're there because of their expertise in the particular disciplinary > contexts which are relevant to the research (e.g in my case a professor from > mechanical engineering is an advisor because of his expertise in product > development but he is not familiar with the theory around, for example, > formative evaluation of research instead of summative evaluation, which > makes communication quite hard and creates a risk of either misguidance or > no guidance at all. ) Get the committee members to be an interdisciplinary team and schedule meetings with them at each (or some) steps while developing the research plan backwards, as in point 1 above. You may have to provide candy or some other incentive to get them to meet, but it is critical that they experience the headaches that ensue from interdisciplinary discussions. > 3. How to manage possible departmental/faculty/supervisory objections to > transdisciplinarity? Sustainability in intrinsically interdisciplinary. Google up some items about "dimensions of sustainable development" or "trade-offs in sustainable development." Then put together a table or diagram of how each discipline enters into sustainable development decisions. For instance, take the 8 UN millennium development goals http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ and correlate each of them with all the disciplines required to achieve each goal. A more classical example is balancing consumption and conservation goals. This requires the participation of, among others, demographers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, biologists, ecologists, ...... The following diagram is very useful to visualize the need for inter-disciplinarity in this balancing act: http://www.ecocosmdynamics.org/ED/fig16.asp If they are not convinced after this, better start looking for another committee. > 4. What to consider in selection of the examiners? (Even though I am not > going to select the examiners, I'll most probably be unofficially consulted > about who has relevant expertise to examine my thesis.) It's very hard to > pinpoint any "expert" whose expertise covers all of the disciplinary areas > my research digs into and integrates them in the way that is integrated in > my particular project. Insist on at least one members being an expert in interdisciplinary research. I am the best of course, but I am far away ... <g> > 5. How to make sure that the justifications (about the need, quality, > contribution etc.)I put forward are not tautological? I have never seen this happen in interdisciplinary team meetings. The reason is that the representatives of the various disciplines keep each other honest. I have seen tantrums though .... <g> > 6. anything that I am overlooking at the moment but you think to be > important... At the end of the day, one of the most difficult things to do is to integrate all the interdisciplinary inputs in a form that is concise and easy to understand. People put together various kinds of tables and diagrams (which may become "spaghetti charts"). I have found that the following tools, with supporting software, are very helpful: The "interdependency square matrices," also known as "design structure matrix" or "dependency structure matrix" -- see, for example: Tutorial: http://www.dsmweb.org/ Web-based tool: http://www.icaen.uiowa.edu/~ankusiak/algorithm.html Supporting software (PSM32): http://problematics.com/ The "causal-loop diagrams" used for "system dynamics" modeling -- see, for example: Tutorials: http://www.thesystemsthinker.com/tstgdlines.html http://filebox.vt.edu/artsci/geology/mclean/Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/pages/earthcau.html Web-based tool: http://www.iseesystems.com/softwares/player/iseeplayer.aspx Supporting software: ISEE or POWERSIM http://www.iseesystems.com http://www.powersim.com Any of these tools, however, requires a learning curve. Goodness, getting late ... best wishes in your project. Luis _______________________________________________ IntSci mailing list [email protected] http://mail.learningforsustainability.net/mailman/listinfo/intsci_learningforsustainability.net _______________________________________________ IntSci mailing list [email protected] http://mail.learningforsustainability.net/mailman/listinfo/intsci_learningforsustainability.net
