Mainstreaming transdisciplinarity in teaching and research

This project aimed to provide recommendations based on a scientific evaluation on how to mainstream transdisciplinary research and teaching training for members of the university community at the Universidad de Talca in Chile. The project was developed with the Transdisciplinarity Lab (DUSYS-TdLab) of ETH Zürich (Switzerland) at the request of the Vice-Rectorate for Research and Innovation of the University of Talca. Members of the university received a training in the "10 steps" methodology which was later on implemented in university courses. The implementation was successful, and the modifications brought by participants to the method made it adaptable to the Chilean context.

As recommendations for mainstreaming transdisciplinary methods in the Chilean academic context, we suggest:

1. Teaching courses with students from different disciplines.
2. Offering training and support for teachers of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary classes or programmes.
3. Integrate inter- and transdisciplinary research with transdisciplinary teaching. This can be done by supporting the exchange between researchers who conduct transdisciplinary research and lecturer who teach inter- and transdisciplinary methods.

• Universidad de Talca, Chile

• Further programmes

• ETH Zurich

• Ejderyan Olivier (Department of Food System Sciences)

Project partners

• research-collection.ethz.ch: Final report of the project

• Society & Innovation (Department of Food System Sciences, FiBL Switzerland)