Transdisciplinary learning

Transdisciplinary (TD) entails a mutual research and learning process involving researchers as well as nonacademic staff. TD research connects researchers, policy makers, and various other stakeholders (see ▶ “Stakeholder”, ▶ “Stakeholders”) in a change process. In this process, the participants investigate and learn to understand issues and solve problems that extend many disciplines both theoretically and methodically (Roux et al. 2017). Consequently, the various perspectives merge in a co-creating learning process toward a wide-ranging aim. Various expertise and forms of knowledge unite to tackle challenging real-world problems in all their complexity (Arnold 2013; Gibbs and Beavis 2020). TD research is based on both theory and practice and is an alternative to more conventional disciplinary-based research. It is like an ideology and a way of dealing with, or taking care of, the world (Gibbs and Beavis 2020). The TD enterprise is a learning process “in which people recognize their own complexity, incoherence and potential to become” (Gibbs and Beavis 2020, p. 5). TD and sustainability are strongly related (see ▶ “Sustainable Development,” ▶ “Sustainability Science”), and TD research and education are increasingly advocated as routes toward sustainability (Hirsch Hadorn et al. 2006; Klein
2020). Knowledge regarding future development requires learning processes considering diversity, complexity, and dynamic issues related to individuals as well as the society and nature on the entire planet. Therefore, TD is seen as a promising approach.