Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Research
Environmental problems cut across fields. I draw on the social sciences to understand people, policy, and power, and on the quantitative sciences to measure what’s happening on the ground.
Transdisciplinary work goes one step further, bringing in the knowledge of communities, agencies, and practitioners outside academia so the research answers questions people in Florida are actually asking.
A Short History of Interdisciplinary & Transdisciplinary Research
Working across fields is an old idea, but it took off as researchers faced problems no single discipline could solve.
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- Two cultures
- 1959
The Two Cultures
C. P. Snow warns that the sciences and humanities have stopped talking to each other.
- 1970
Transdisciplinarity is named
Jean Piaget uses the term at an OECD seminar on interdisciplinary teaching and research.
- Problems that cross boundaries
- 1973
Wicked problems
Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber argue planning problems have no single right answer and can't be solved by one discipline.
- 1984
Complexity science
The Santa Fe Institute is founded to study complex systems across physics, biology, economics, and social science.
- 1994
Mode 2 knowledge
Michael Gibbons and colleagues describe research that is organized around real-world problems instead of disciplines.
- Science with society
- 2001
Sustainability science
Robert Kates and colleagues call for a new field linking nature and society to support sustainable development.
- 2004
Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research
The U.S. National Academies recommend ways for universities and funders to support work across fields.
- 2009
Social-ecological systems
Elinor Ostrom publishes a framework for studying how people and ecosystems shape each other.
- 2012
Transdisciplinary practice
Daniel Lang and colleagues set out principles for research that includes communities and practitioners from the start.
Fields I Draw On
Social Sciences
- Sociology
- Economics
- Political science
- Psychology
Quantitative Sciences
- Physics
- Mathematics
- Engineering
Methods
- GIS & spatial analysis
- Policy analysis
- Interviews
- Statistical modeling
Key Readings
- Gibbons, M., et al. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge. Sage.
- Kates, R. W., et al. (2001). Sustainability science. Science, 292(5517), 641–642.
- Lang, D. J., et al. (2012). Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: Practice, principles, and challenges. Sustainability Science, 7(S1), 25–43.
- Ostrom, E. (2009). A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science, 325(5939), 419–422.
- Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169.