-

Ki
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY

VTIMULATING

SYNERGIES,

INTEGRATINGKNOWLEDGE

UNESCO
Division of Philosophy and Ethics
1998

Transdisciplinarity:

Stimulating Synergies, Integrating Knowledge

How to tackle the manifold aspects of reality? How to increase understanding on

global and complex issues? How to stimulate synergies among disciplines? How to
support co-operation and exchange among experts and sectors?
These questions provided the broad scope of the Symposium on Transdisciplinarity
which took place in Royaumont Abbey in May 1998. The present report tries to
account for the many discussions among scholars and to outline the theoretical debate
and the practical advice and recommendations. This report wishes to provide tools to
increase conceptual knowledge and operative know-how on transdisciplinary issues,
and it hopes to give new insights to the many programmes of UNESCO.
As a multi-sectoral organization, UNESCO has oRen been involved in activities
beyond the mono-disciplinary perspective. Year after year, the co-operation among
various sectors and disciplines has assumed different modalities. These modalities
have been differently labelled: multi-disciplinarity,
inter-disciplinari@,
and now
trans-disciplinarity.
Borders, similarities and differences among these perspectives have rarely been
clearly explained. This report then tries to clarify the not always evident distinction
approaches to
and articulation between multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary
theoretical knowledge and problem solving.
The lack of clarification has caused a widespread impression that co-operation among
disciplines and sectors can be achieved through unstructured brainstorming. To
address complex issues that fall outside the domain of a single discipline or the
competence of an individual, it seemed enough to call meetings, to put people
together, and to collect their contributions.
On the contrary, the Symposium made it clear that this is not enough. Gathering is a
requirement. Proximity is a necessity. Even establishing a daily physical or virtual
exchange is crucial. But a substantial factor, the most important factor, is the kind of
interaction among the elements of the gathering. And, as is the case for human beings,
the decisive ingredient is their mental and personal disposition to trust, share,
negotiate and collaborate.
In an academic world characterized by a plethora of segmented disciplines,
integration
is the cardinal keyword to increase understanding. Neither
multi-disciplinarity nor inter-disciplinarity meets this criterion.
Multi-disciplinarity,
often relying on the simple juxtaposition of mono-disciplinary
approaches, frequently fails to produce unified outlooks. Inter-disciplinarity, mostly
based on assembling distinct viewpoints, keeps its roots in fragmented disciplines,
and consequently misses the coherence it is aiming at.

III

Addressing global and complex issues requires a qualitative, not just quantitative,
shift. This shift - characterised as integration of knowledge - is a direct outcome
of the redefinition of the object of study. Such redefinition has to be carried out within
the framework of the fundamental unity underlying all forms of knowledge. This
framework constitutes the theoretical background of a transdisciplinary dimension.
Transdisciplinarity is the intellectual space where the nature of the manifold links
among isolated issues can be explored and unveiled, the space where issues are
rethought, alternatives reconsidered, and interrelations revealed.
In this dimension, the notion of transectorality needs also to be re-examined - as
many scholars urged in the light of the many reflections started on
transdisciplinarity. Indeed, a transectoral approach, as transdisciplinary approach,
aims at soundly composed views. This requires an exploration of new meanings of
synergy.
The co-operative work - the syn-ergon - among people or sectors has to go
beyond its mere quantitative dimension, and the often dissonant poly-phony of many
distinct voices has to be reconceived to reach a higher level of harmony. It has to be
transformed into a sym-phony
Transdisciplinarity has been happily synthesised as the meeting point of people and
minds. This is the intellectual space where the concrete daily work of UNESCO
has to be rethought in a dimension of synergy and integration of efforts. The
Symposium provided some clues in this regard.
In striving for this synergy, one should not rely upon ready-made procedures,
stereotyped formulas, and standardized answers. One should not be afraid of leaving
behind familiar ground, nor be fearful to admit ignorance in front of the unknown.
One should learn to be comfortable with uncertainty, and be ready to trust. In other
words, be ready to get transformed, in order to see things getting transformed.
This endeavour is not easy. Trying to achieve effective transectorality, as trying to
undertake transdisciplinary approaches, is a truly difficult task. But it is important to
have realized that this effort implies new eyes, new dispositions, new behaviours and
new ways of thinking since, as Albert Einstein used to remember, the signz~cant
problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.
Indeed this is the way to go if we want to face issues of the next millennium.

Yersu Kim
Director
Division of Philosophy and Ethics

IV

and solve -

the complex global

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Transdisciplinarity: Stimulating Synergies, Integrating Knowledge

Introduction ....................................................................................................................VII
1.1 - UNESCO, a Transdisciplinary

1.2 - UNESCO Transdisciplinary

1.3 - UNESCO Transdisciplinary

Organization .....................................................3
Programmes, a brief overview .............................3
Programmes, preliminary insights .....................4

2.1- A Metaphor for Transdisciplinarity .....................................................................9

2.2 - A Symposium on Transdisciplinarity ..................................................................10
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6

Transdisciplinarity,
Transdisciplinarity,
Transdisciplinarity,
Transdisciplinarity,
Transdisciplinarity,
Transdisciplinarity,

What is Transdisciplinarity

integrative processes and integrated knowledge ..............13

building a theoretical framework ......................................13
drawing a conceptual background ...................................14
an insightful approach for every issue? ...........................16
against the disciplines? ......................................................17
beyond Multidisciplinarity
and [email protected]
?

41.1 - Plf=aly #I .. . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . .. . . . . . . .. .. . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
41.2 - working Group #l........._.................... .............................._.........._._....24
What makes Transdisciplinarity succeed or fail?
4.2.1- Plenary #2 ........-....................................................................................26
4.2.2 - Working Group #2 ..............................................................................29
What global issues need Transdisciplinarity?
#3 ............................................................................................30
43.1 ---lenary
Group #3 ..............................................................................31
43.2 - wor4z
How do we research and evaluate Transdisciplinarity?
4.4-l - Plenav #4 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .._._......................_._.__............... 32
4.4.2 - Working Group #4.. ................._...__..__...................__________....................34
Conclusion: Transdisciplinarity

as Self-transformation

...........................................37

Reference Materials
Bibliography on Transdisciplinarity
List of Participants

T&prepared by Massimilian~ LQU~~Z~,

PHE

DRG98AW05

Introduction
By virtue of its own multi-sectoral nature, and faithful to its mandate, UNESCO has a
long-standing engagement with initiatives and ideas stemming from the co-operation
of various disciplines, on a ground fertilized by the encounter of all the worlds
cultures.
This is precisely why the International Symposium on Transdisciplinarity - held in
Val-dOise from 25 to 29 May 1998, in the marvelous Cistercian setting of the
Royaumont Abbey - on the theme Towards Integrative Process and Integrated
Knowledge has aroused the deepest interest and support of the Organization.
The Symposium, organized by the McGill Centre for Ethics, Medicine and Law
(Montreal, Canada), was sponsored by the Encyclopaedia of Life Support Systems and
UNESCO, actively represented by the Division of Philosophy and Ethics.
Twenty-seven participants, including scholars coming from universities in seven
countries, together with representatives from different sectors of UNESCO
(Education, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Philosophy), took the opportunity
to undertake a thorough dialogue on transdisciplinarity.
After the welcoming addresses by the two co-conveners (Prof. Margaret Somerville
and Prof. David Rapport), the Director of the Division of Philosophy and Ethics of
UNESCO (Prof. Yersu Kim), and the E.O.L.S.S. representative (Prof. Andrew Sage),
four fundamental questions were put up for reflection:

a>
l-9
4
4

What is transdisciplinarity?
What makes transdisciplinarity succeed or fail?
What global issues need transdisciplinarity?
How do we research and evaluate transdisciplinarity?

VII

1.1 -

UNESCO, a Transdisciplinary

Organization

1.2 -

UNESCO Transdisciplinaly
a brief overview

Programmes,

1.3 -

UNESCO Transdisciplinary
preliminav insights

Programmes,

1.1 -

UNESCO, a Transdisciplinary Organization

As the UNESCO Director-General, Mr. Federico Mayor, said at the opening of the
International
Symposium on Interdisciplinarity,
back in 1991, when McGill
University and UNESCO had previously sat around the same table to enucleate
problems and hopes of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity,
((the contributions made by our Organization
the United Nations are founded on dyerent
they bring together scientific components sense of the word - and cultural and ethical

to the family of
points of view;
in the strictest
knowledge)).

Indeed UNESCO has always placed the utmost importance in the development of
integrated holistic approaches, in dealing with the Organizations many issues environmental and cultural development, population, human rights and democracy,
transcultural education, etc. - which pose challenges that cut across the boundaries
between disciplines and even between fields of knowledge.
It is in fact incumbent on UNESCO, because of its intellectual vocation, to heighten
awareness of the uniqueness and special relevance of transdisciplinarity, as an urgent
challenge required by the increasing complexity of contacts and exchanges between
specialized domains.
In this view, transdisciplinarity - working against the fragmentation of knowledge
carried out in the name of the disciplines - represents a positive answer to those
excesses of hyperspecialization, which have the tendency to become just sterile
and where intellectual obstacles reinforce institutional
compartmentalization,
obstacles and vice versa.

1.2 -

UNESCO Transdisciplinary Programmes, a brief overview

The concept of transdisciplinarity has achieved increasingly wide recognition within

UNESCO. Faced with the speed of change and growing complexity of the world and
with the new challenges of history, the Organization has endeavoured to introduce
both greater flexibility and transdisciplinarity into all of its programmes design and
implementation.
In this light, UNESCOs action - increasingly designed in terms of transdisciplinary
projects and developed on the basis of a thematic, rather than sectoral, approach brings together various areas of knowledge and tries to find practical solutions to
crucial problems of development whose intricacy calls for holistic methods.
These projects try to express, both conceptually and methodologically, this
transdisciplinary approach which is of fundamental importance in seeking a better
understanding of the modern world, as was shown during the debates at the last
General Conference and, in particular, in the statements by the heads of delegation at
the plenary sessions.

UNESCO representatives made all the participants in the Symposium aware of some
of these transdisciplinary projects by clarifying their main distinctive features:
a.

at the conceptual level, they deal in an integrated manner with questions that,
although interdependent, had hitherto been considered separately, while,

b.

at methodological level, they seek to combine, within a single action plan, the
contributions of education, the sciences, culture and communication.

Among the many other transdisciplinary projects (e.g., MOST, MAB, Ethics of Science
and Technology, Educating for a Sustainable Future, Learning Without Frontiers,
etc.) the Universal Ethics Project was mentioned as one of the expressions of
UNESCOs long-standing concern to articulate a common, cross-cultural substratum
of ethical values and norms. This substratum is intended to be used as the basis for
collective efforts towards peace and development, as well as for peaceful and
productive interaction among nations and societies. It was pointed out how the
Universal Ethics Project tries to integrate the best of the current philosophical and
ethical thinking of the global community, by involving individuals and institutions
representing different disciplines, traditions and points of view, in the belief that the
recognition of diversity need not lead to a relativism of values and norms.
In the end, UNESCOs Culture of Peace Project was presented. It was explained how
this major transdisciplinary project aims at promoting values, attitudes and behaviours
that will empower people to seek peaceful solutions to problems. This project
incorporates and integrates all the innovative projects and activities which all Sectors
of the Organization are actively developing, together with a wide range of partners, to
foster the advancement of a global movement for a Culture of Peace.

1.3 -

UNESCO Transdisciplinary Programmes, preliminary insights

Through such projects and initiatives, UNESCO has learned how difficult and critical
it is to establish a transdisciplinary approach.
It was explained that, while many of the attempts have been successful, others have
shown the difficulties
of inter-sectoral and inter-disciplinary
co-operation.
Nonetheless, the numerous border incidents, encountered in the course of these cooperations, have oRen proved to be fruitful.
One of the main things UNESCO has learned from its past experiences is that the
mobility of knowledge does call for a permanent shifting of intellectual borders, as
well as for the creation of a cross-border territory.
It has been clear, indeed, that there is no contribution, however modest in appearance
or reality, which, under cross-fertilizing influences, cannot one day become the corner
stone of a new conceptual structure.

UNESCO has also realized how a strong disciplinary base is needed in all its fields of
competence, if a transdisciplinary approach is to be effective, and, at the same time,
how the true significance of individual disciplines appears only against the back-drop
of transdisciplinarity.
Furthermore, UNESCO has realized what Prof M. Sommerville clearly said during the
Symposium:
ctwe speak the language of our discipline, which raises two
problems: first, we may not understand the languages of the
other disciplines; second, more dangerously, we may think
that we understand these, but do not, because although the
same terms are used in d@erent disciplines, they mean
something very different in each)).
The theme of the International Symposium Transdisciplinarity:
Towards
Integrative Process and Integrated Knowledge - openly suggested that the way to
follow should be a continuous methodological attempt to define rules to cross the
borders between disciplines.
In this view, UNESCO representatives agreed that trying to define a common,
unambiguous and consistent methodological language would be the first path towards
a fruitful, substantive transdisciplinarity.
Lastly, it was stated that UNESCO hoped to receive insights and methodological
guidelines to orient its future actions from this Symposium, intended to be built not
just on the imperative we should or we must, but around the question of how.

2.1 -A

Metaphor for Transdisciplinarity

2.2 - A Symposium on Transdisciplinarity

2.1-

A Metaphor for Transdisciplinarity

Learning

to bake a cake

ctA metaphor which I have found useful in describing the

d@culties that we have in engaging in transdisciplinary
activities, which really points to the need for better
articulation of the methodological processes that can be used
in developing transdisciplinarity, is that of aJive years old boy
who says to his mother, I want to bake a cake .
His mother gives him the ingredients ~ butter, milk, flour,
eggs, sugar, flavouring, raisins - and he simply throws these
into a bowl and stirs them with a wooden spoon.
The result will be a lumpy mess, not a cake and probably not
even a pancake.
The boys mother knows how these ingredients must be
combined in order to achieve the necessary blending of them.
Moreover, she knows that, depending on how she treats these
ingredients - both before they are put into the mixture for the
cake and the way in which they are introduced - she will
obtain a very dyerent kind of cake. For instance, if she
separates the eggs whites from the yolks and beats the egg
whites and lightly folds them in the last moment, she will have
a sponge cake, as compared with, if she uses the eggs whole, a
dense tea cake. In both cases, she ends up with a cake, but
these are of very d@erent natures.
Analogous variations may occur
we treat and mix disciplines
transdisciplinarity (. .) M.

depending on how
in the context of

Prof. Margaret A. Somerville

2.2 -A

Symposium on Transdisciplinarity

At the beginning of the Symposium, some words of UNESCO Director-General

Federico Mayor were recalled:
&he seeds of progress germinate, and the shape of the future
unfolds in our conviviality, at the convergence of all our
d@erent paths. It is in this gradual cross-fertilization that
the future of knowledge ~ and indeed of the world resides)).
These words set the tone for the many reflections that took place in the peaceful
surroundings of Royaumont Abbey, on the following
questions: What is
transdisciplinarity? Why is it so crucial to have a theoretical focus on this concept?
What global issues urge a transdisciplinary approach? How can we conduct research
and evaluate transdisciplinarity?
In the following days, in the endeavour to address the many issues that surround the
notion of transdisciplinarity, each topic was initially tackled through the personal
contributions of animateurs, then by intense group discussions involving all
participants.
In order to proceed to in-depth analyses, syntheses and further development of the
four main topics, the participants organized themselves in working groups. Each
group made a report to the plenary on the outcome of its discussions.
The colloquium, under the auspices of Prof. Rapport and Prof. Somerville, concluded
that intellectual collaboration among all the participants and UNESCO would
continue in the future.
The participants expressed their wish to work together on a regular basis also by
establishing an Internet Web site and a Forum on Transdisciplinarity, consequently
trying to recreate in virtual space a daily physicalproximizy that, as Prof. Somerville
highlighted, is a crucial factor to fuyil significant methodological and substantive
results.
Finally, the hope was that, by developing these synergies, the concept of
transdisciplinarity could become more and more familiar within and without the
academic environment, showing its utmost importance in achieving a more thorough
knowledge of the complex reality of this end of millennium.

10

3.1-

Transdisciplinarity,

integrative processes and integrated knowledge

3.2 -

Transdisciplinarity,

building a theoretical framework

3.3 -

Transdisciplinarity,

drawing a conceptual background

3.4 -

Transdisciplinarity,

an insightful approach for every issue?

3.5 -

Transdisciplinarity,

against the disciplines?

3.6 -

Transdisciplinarity,

beyond Multidisciplinarity

and Interdisciplinarity

3.1 -

Transdisciplinarity,
Integrative Processes and Integrated Knowledge.

Out of the many reflections a central point arose:

The way to attain an integrated concept and practice of knowledge,

and consequently to address many crucial issues of our age through a
transdisciplinary
approach, does not lie in applying ready-made,
mechanical procedures based on automatic, stereotyped formulas
and standardized recipes; but rather, in establishing various complex,
integrative processes to be mindfully and cautiously implemented in
the light of manifold criteria.

FaithfUl to the spirit of the Symposium, the present report tries to represent the many
complementary contributions in a small dossier-like structure.
By doing so, on the one hand, there is a wish to avoid a summary which might
provide unreliable reductive sketches with illusive problem-solving scenarios.
On the other hand, there is a hope to increase thoughtful awareness on methodological
and substantial matters concerning new holistic perspectives to better understand the
world and address its various problems.

3.2 -

Transdisciplinarity,

building a theoretical framework

From a conceptual point of view, transdisciplinarity can be seen as a theoretical

attempt to transcend disciplines and, by that, to react against hyperspecialization a process leading to a dramatically growing fragmentation of knowledge - while at
the same time maintaining the advantages of creativity and initiative peculiar to each
specific field of knowledge.
In this sense, the Symposium aimed at finding significant points of agreement on the
steps to be undertaken at the methodological level to elaborate a sound and unified
transdisciplinary approach.
The general understanding was that, only by establishing a coherent theoretical
framework, can an attempt be made to successfUlly cope with the crucial problems of
our time and, then, to take into proper consideration the complex set of implications
they give rise to.
The participants agreed on the main working hypothesis of the colloquium: finding
out coherent methodological approach(es) to integrative processes as the way to
achieve solid and substantial integrated knowledge.

13

Consequently, the issue of a common transdisciplinary language, of a transcendental

language or a meta-language, was explicitly raised throughout the Symposium
(see 94.1).
Through several constructive confrontations, the participants succeeded in making
distinctions
among three apparently
similar concepts: multidisciplinarity,
interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity (see $3.6 and $4.1).
Eventually, after many thorough analyses, an initial set of methodological rules and
elements to be applied for an approach to be transdisciplinary was successfully
isolated (see $3.4 and $4.2).
A growing number of global issues were acknowledged as needing a transdisciplinary
approach in order to be properly analyzed and addressed (see 94.3).
It was also recognized how the nature of reality itself, with its inherent complexity and
m&form character, but at the same time with its deep unity, requires transcending the
boundaries of single disciplines (see 93.3).
It was also observed that the probable reason for these global issues to necessitate a
transdisciplinary approach is that they tend to reveal, more than others, the underlying
complexity of reality (see 53.4).
As already mentioned, Mr. Federico Mayor once affirmed that the future of
knowledge, and indeed of the world, resides in a gradual cross-fertilization resulting
from the convergence of difference paths in a spirit of conviviality.
During the Symposium it emerged that such a cross-fertilization requires the
development of a sound transdisciplinary perspective, of a new intellectual space in
which to pursue the epistemological endeavour of widely and deeply exploring the
very nature of the links to be established between single disciplines.
As Prof. Somerville highlighted,
((many of the bricks that we are using to develop our
knowledge base for the future, are not new. The way in
which we are organizing them prior to building, that is, the
that we are developing to enable
methodologies
transdisciplinary activity to take place, are new. Moreover,
as a consequence, some of the buildings that result, are
new )).

3.3 -

Transdisciplinary, drawing a conceptual background

As a preliminary condition to increase understanding in the field of transdisciplinarity,

attempts were ma.de to clarify the perspective under which human knowledge was
considered. Two ways of looking at knowledge emerged:

14

1.

Attention was focused on the concept of knowledge. In this view, a

widespread interpretation of knowledge as necessarily articulated in
disciplines - as disciplinary by nature - was explored. It was agreed that
in this framework the single disciplines should be seen as constitutive and
taken as autonomous branches, distinct bodies and departments of
knowledge.

Therefore, by conceiving knowledge as structurally disciplinary, the construction of

what was called a transdisciplinary space would seemingly become an intellectual
exercise, theoretically interesting, but not necessarily more useful for addressing
wider and deeper understanding of complex issues,
2.

Similar attention was focused on the concept of reality, by considering, and

mostly recognizing, its intrinsic complexity and its multiform character, while
highlighting at the same time its deep unity.

In this perspective, each discipline is not constitutive but just instrumental, as it is

useful, at a first instance, to analyse difficult problems under a specific point of view.
Thus, a YransdiscipIinarity approach becomes essential insofar as the main
intellectual aim coincides with a quest for a wider and deeper knowledge of a
compound reality.
The outcome of these preliminary discussions on the conceptual background of a
transdisciplinary approach was to recognize a complex and unitary profile of reality,
which consequently calls for a unified approach to knowledge.
The debate on whether to assume a so-called knowledge-based perspective or a socalled reality-based perspective, acknowledged the relevance of a more holistic
transdisciplinary
approach to overcome, and to transform, a reductionist
disciplinary approach.
A strong agreement was also reached on the idea that disciplines are not able to give
an answer or even to isolate many problems whose solution would at once necessitate
and provide a better understanding of reality (see $4.2).
Prof. Krimsky (Tufts University, USA) explained in this regard that transdisciplinarity
c<suggeststhat some questions are best treated by combining two disciplines, or at
least their methods of analysis or theore tical frameworks jj,
He said that this can be better understood by considering the intrinsic transdisciplinary
nature of certain classes of questions, as &here are certain classes of questions that
transcend a single discipline. One such class of questions pertain to the synthesis of
knowledge)).
On this basis, it was also highlighted that many issues of fundamental importance for
our society (e.g., human freedom, determinism, etc.) could not even be posed
within the specific domain of single disciplines.

15

In the light of these initial epistemological steps, the concept of transdisciplinarity was
attributed the utmost importance at the gnoseological level, inasmuch as it looked
evident that the transdisciplinary approach is essential to enhance rational
understanding.
Consequently, the whole symposium was carried out under the idea that adopting
transdisciplinary approaches is a crucial step on the long and never-ending path of
human knowledge.

3.4 -

Transdisciplinarity,

an insightful approach for every issue?

At this stage, an additional question began to emerge: whether a transdisciplinary

approach would be insightful not only for complex and global issues, but also for all
kinds of issues.
Why and how to extend a transdisciplinary
again, to a twofold reflection:

approach also to simple issues leads,

a.

on the one side, if only global and complex issues appear to call for a
transdisciplinary approach, this could be solely because they tend to reveal,
more than others do, the underlying complexity of reality;

b.

on the other side, when the word simple is used, many assumptions on how
to decide when and where to stop the analysis - consequently qualifying and
defining an issue as simple - remain actually hidden.

Thus, the inquiry into a given simple issue should not necessarily be stopped at the
very first level, even when that level seems to provide a satisfactory explanation.
When time and resources allow, in-depth investigations bring deeper understanding
also on simple issues by unveiling more exhaustive aspects.
For a given object of study, there are conceptual tools, which actually seem better
suited than others, However, it should not be overlooked that this depends both on
what is being looked for in a given issue, and on what kind and level of analysis one
may want to have. Consequently, at any time, and for any given issue, an approach
marked by intellectual humility would always be desirable.
At the methodological level, for instance, it could be recognized that, despite the fact
that a given conceptual tool is currently being used - as it looked to be the most
suitable at the present time - other perspectives could (and should) always be tried, if
one wishes to increase knowledge on the issue or the understanding of the problem
from a different viewpoint.

16

3.5 -

Transdisciplinarity,

against the disciplines?

During the Symposium, it was pointed out that, despite its great importance for major
world problems of our time, the concept of transdisciplinarity is still viewed with
scepticism and encounters some resistance in the field of social analysis and certain
other sciences (natural and exact), affecting its acceptance as a fruitful way of
thinking.
This resistance is often due to the suspicion that transdisciplinarity
disciplinary approach to knowledge and aim at supplanting it.

could threaten a

In this respect, it was made clear that there is no opposition, but rather intrinsic and
necessary complementarity, between a disciplinary and a transdisciplinary approach to
knowledge.
To picture this relationship, Prof. M. Sommerville and Prof. D. Rapport evoked a
spatial dynamics of transdisciplinarity. The two conveners used the paired images
of intellectual innerspace and intellectual outerspace to denote the area occupied
by the various disciplines in connection with transdisciplinarity.
As Prof. Somerville specifically pointed out,
((Transdisciplinarity may even be described as intellectual
outerspace . But to have an outerspace necessarily
requires that there would be an innerspace , and this
.
rnnerspace is provided by the disciplines. This means
that we need to allow for the development of the disciplines,
including the possibility
of new disciplines, without
inhibiting the development of the intellectual outerspace
within which transdisciplinarity takes place.
FVhat we are
seeking to do is to give this outerspace structure, without
rigidity; to create an environment for the integration of
knowledge which is intellectually credible and which would
open up the possibility of gaining insights that would
otherwise be unlikely to emerge (...)M.

Consequently, reflecting on transdisciplinarity does not mean rejecting a disciplinary

perspective, but rather enhancing the understanding of reality by means of a new
conceptual framework.
It is thus of vital importance to articulate and systematize as much as possible
methods and principles to begin framing a conceptual space where, through creative
and imaginative interaction, it will be possible to explore integrative methodologies
for the production of integrated knowledge.

17

3.6 -

Transdisciplinarity,
beyond Multidisciplinarity

and Interdisciplinarity

Focusing on the articulation of methods and principles at the border between different
disciplines means going a step beyond the notion of interdisciplinarity.
As Prof. Masini (Pontificia Universith Gregoriana, Italy) explained:
and a
KThe difference between an interdisciplinary
transdisciplinary approach is as follows: in the former,
disciplines offer a parallel analysis of problems (..); in the
latter, disciplines offer their specific approaches and even
basic assumptions, to a dialogue, in order to address
complex issues together. In the case of transdisciplinarity,
approaches and even methods are developed in a joint
eflort, something which is indeed dif,EcuIt in complex
societies, but very necessary ( ..) ))
Consequently, the shift of transdisciplinarity is from a parallel analysis of problems to
the establishment of a common dialogue, which would address complex issues on the
basis of shared approaches and methods.
On the basis of an actual working experience, Prof. Klein (Wayne St. University,
USA) gave an even more specific example of the shift from multidisciplinary to
interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary approach:
((In the fields of child development and problems of the
handicapped, a transdisciplinary approach connotes
more systematic delivery of health care than occurs in a
of specialists
or
multidisciplinary juxtaposition
interdisciplinary coordination of their expertise (. .). N
KA transdisciplinary team participates in more thorough
assimilation of knowledge. [Team members] work together,
rather than in a sequential separation, to assimilate their
knowledge and perspectives (. .). N
This issue was thoroughly addressed by Working Group #l and Working Group #2
(see 94.1.2 and $4.2.2).

18

What is Transdisciplinarity

?
4.1.1- Plenary #1
4.1.2 - Working Group #1

What makes Transdisciplinarity succeed or fail?

4.2.1 - Plenary #2
4.2.2 - Working Group #2

What global issues need Transdisciplinarity?

4.3.1 - Plenary #3
4.3.2 - Working Group #3

How do we research and evaluate Transdisciplinarity?

4.4.1 - Plenary #4
4.4.2 - Working Group #4

4.1.1 - Plenary 1: What is Transdisciplinarity ?

Prof. Gavan J. McDonell (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Prof. McDonell started his reflection by making a clear distinction between the
concepts of multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.
On the one hand he suggested calling multi-disciplinary studies a ctcollaboration
among experts, members of different disciplines, where the relation among them is
associative, i.e. where the work of each of them is added to that of all the others)).
On the other hand he suggested that in interdisciplina~ studies the ctconnection is
relationah i.e. ccthedisciplines collaborate in such a way that each takes up some of
the assumptions and worldviews and languages of the others)).
In the view of Prof. McDonell, transdisciplinarity differs from interdisciplinarity in its
capability to give birth to a meta-language.
Specifically, in an interdisciplinary dimension, the single disciplines tend to establish
only a rudimentary level collaboration. On the contrary, within a transdisciplinary
dimension a common transcendent language arises, allowing the level of sharing
needed to generate an entirely new intellectual space through which fragmentation
of knowledge can be contrasted and issues properly addressed.
Transdisciplinarity therefore would exist, according to his model, ((where the
integrating relationship is taken to the extent of there being a transcendent language,
a meta-language, in which the terms of all the participant disciplines are, or can be,
expressed)).
From this point of view, he clarified that the concept of transdisciplinarity c&an& in a
long line of endeavours to produce the linked accomplishments of integrated
knowledge and universal language)).
Prof. McDonell then recalled L Encyclop&die, the famous project of Diderot,
dAlambert, Condorcet and other philosophes which was intended to include all the
knowledge worth knowing - as well as Umberto Ecos speculation on the search for
a perfect language.
He stressed hbw ((the hope that human endeavour was capable of producing forms of
knowledge)) which could express ctreliable, comprehensive and universally rational
accounts of the world)) lies ctin the search for comprehensive knowledge and universal
Ianguage>~.
Consequently, Prof. McDonell shared his conviction on the importance of elaborating a
transdisciplinary approach, which he sees as a transdisciplinary relief. However, he
also emphasized the need to be aware of the difficulties of this intellectual path.
In this regard, he drew a ctsuggestionJLom the claim about forms of knowledge being
the production of specifrc forms of culture)>.

21

At first he affirmed that ctwhere we have cultural differences, we are also likely to
have cultural conflicts)). He explained that he would use exactly the words cultural
con$ict to describe ccthe difficulties, the divergences, and the resulting <turf wars
which provide the symptoms that have drawn the concern of those organising this
meeting in the hope offorging some transdisciplinary relief)).
He shared his confidence that, to achieve significant outcomes in transdisciplinarity, it
is essential to overcome the structural linguistic boundaries which separate one
discipline from another as well as to engage in cross-cultural dialogues.
The interaction among disciplines, he explained, ((does not involve simply an exchange
of concepts, a sharing of information, a rustle of eager and enquiring conversation)).
This interaction ctoniry takes place within an engagement, and very likely con@Iict,
between cultures)).
For one of the most important peculiarities of a cultural form, any cultural form,
consists in (tits possession of a distinctive language)) and with all that consequently
implies in terms of different worldviews, different conceptions on ((the shared and the
different, the familiar and the alien, the domestic and the exotic>).
Thus, as Prof. McDonell identifies language as the first obstacle to the construction of
a unified approach to knowledge, he suggests we turn to philosophy and to the analysis
of language in order to compose the differences among disciplines.
Continuing this reflection, Prof. McDonell identifies two main philosophical camps
The first camp, often called postmodernism, c<emphasises and ceIebrutes the
fragmentation of knowledge and disciplines in our world)). According to Prof.
McDonell, many postmodernists would <<dismissthe hope of integrated knowledge as
a modernist and dangerous illusion)).
He puts in the other camp those who ((seek to put in modern terms the Enlightenment
hopes of a universal reason, shared, emancipatory knowledge, and moral consensus
on actions. In this regard, Prof. McDonell explained that this hope ctunderlies the
attitudes of many scientists and technologists towards their work)).
He proceeded to an articulated confrontation between postmodernist authors enemies of transdisciplinarity as persuaded by the impossibility of reaching agreed
norms of meaning and of constructing meta-languages - and Jurgen Habermas who,
with his faith in a notion of universal reason and in a morality beyond cultural
conditions and contexts, is considered the recent contributor to a long research
programme in the theory of knowledge and social order.
Prof. McDonell concluded his presentation by stressing the need for mutual dialogue
and respectful understanding.
There most certainly are, he said, ((urgent needssfor tolerant cooperation and
productive discourse among the great scientific disciplines of contemporary

22

civilization)). But in his opinion (ta widespread, stable and influential

shared identity of transdisciplinarity)) is lacking at present.

basis for a

Prof. McDonell suggested <(to start by expanding our disciplinav communities into
more cosmopolitan cultures)). In his view, this expansion process should be
approached ((through the encouragement of mutually respectful processes of both
reflection and understanding)).
Respect is seen here as a fnndamental ingredient for a transdisciplinary reflection
which needs to synthesise many different, often contrasting, positions without
annihilating their uniqueness.
This idea, as Prof. McDonell recalled, is well expressed by Gerard Delantys position
concerning a cosmopolitan model of cultural transformation.
In this conception, a ((reflective discourse is more concerned with bringing to a
heightened level of awareness cultural potentials and with recognising differences)),
more than to find quiescent unanimity at all costs, for &he aim of reflection is mutual
understanding, not consensual agreement)).
This conclusive thought, in the very words of Prof. McDonell, ((can bear careful
consideration)) when one tries ccto articulate the conditions for cooperations among
different, and often contending, disciplinary cultures)).

23

4.1.2 - Working Group #l:

What is transdisciplinarity ?
Bearing in mind Prof. McDonells recommendation on the utmost importance of
building up a transdisciplinary language, a meta-language, a new common
linguistic space able to contrast effectively the current process of fragmentation of
knowledge, Working Group #l endeavored to elaborate a broad and shared definition
of transdisciplinarity.
During the debate, several difftculties emerged regarding:

4
b)
c)

the danger of equivocal or non-univocal meaning of basic concepts like

knowledge and problem;
the identification of transdisciplinarity as a methodology/process or as a
content/discipIine;
the presence and/or need of a teleological component in the definition i.e.,
whether the purpose of a transdisciplinary approach should be recognized either
in a problem solving activity or in a broader non-instrumentalist aim.

After a preliminary debate, the participants decided to proceed to a silent

experiment: working separately for a few minutes, each one was requested to
contribute an individual definition of transdisciplinarity, to be put up for discussion
and jointly analyzed.
Hereunder are the different definitions recollected:
Ms. Jacqueline Russel:
Transdisciplinarity is a process whereby culturally constructed boundaries of
single disciplines are transcended in order to address problems porn multiple
perspectives to generate emergent knowledge.
Prof. William Newell:
Transdisciplinarity is transforming and integrating knowledge from
interested perspectives to define and address complex problems.

all

Mr. Luca Zarri:

Transdisciplinarity is integrating and transforming knowledge in order to
better face, from multiple perspectives, the complexity of reality.
Prof. Gavan McDonnel:
TransdiscipIinariQ is integrating and transforming fields of knowledge from
multiple perspectives to enhance understanding of problems to be addressed,
in order to improve future choices.
Prof. Roderick MacDonald:
Transdisciplinarity is transcending
about alternative futures.

24

partial

knowledge

to pluralize

choice

Prof. Thomas Warn:

Transdisciplinarity
is something different
from
multidisciplinarity,
interdisciplinarity and physics (or whathever other specific discipline). It is
different from an all-inclusive approach, as it is different from a too general
approach.
Prof. Julie Thompson Klein:
Transdisciplinarity
is practicing knowledge in a reflexive manner that
recognizes, not denies, the inherent plurality and complexity of the human
condition.
Mr. Massimiliano Lattanzi:
Transdisciplinarity is not a discipline but an approach, a process to increase
knowledge by integrating
and transforming
different gnoseological
perspectives.
In the light of the definitions provided, it was possible to single out some key ideas,
elements, ingredients to be necessarily included in a provisional definition of
transdisciplinarity:
a.

Gnosis/axis:
(transforming,

an active
integrating,

element having a threefold

reconstitutive) was isolated;

connotation

b.

Inclusive Embracement: this was recognized as an inherent character of

transdisciplinarity. It is also interesting to note how the maximum of generality
is considered a limit to this quality (not all-inclusive, not too-general);

C.

(Self-)ReJlexive: the need for a constant explicit unfolding of assumptions and

values was widely recognized;

d.

Complexity: this is a cardinal character of a transdisciplinary dimension

(e.g. complex situations, complex knowledge, complex problems);

e.

Plurality (e.g. multiple/diverse/different perspectives of knowledge);

J:

Future-oriented

g.

Problem-solving component: this teleological element is often present.

Nevertheless, beside the concrete problem-solving aspect, a pure gnoseological
dimension has to be considered to exhaustively define transdiciplinarity.

alternative choices;

The conceptual elements isolated by this first working group were given back to the
Plenary as a set of ingredients to be necessarily included in a preliminary theoretical
definition of transdisciplinarity.
Moreover, this group agreed upon the methodological suitability to work on a first
general non-instrumentalist definition of transdisciplinarity and therefore to educe from
it a more pragmatic problem-oriented definition.

25

4.2.1-

Plenary 2: What makes Transdisciplinarity succeed or fail?

Prof. Anthony M. McMIichael (University of London, England)

Prof. McMichaels presentation focused on identification of the fundamental factors

that allow transdisciplinarity to succeed. Before answering this question, he gave his
own insights to the pivotal distinction between the concepts of interdisciplinarity,
multidisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity.
The term interdisciplinary is often used loosely. It perhaps
ought to refer more specifically to research topics and
methods that occupy newly-recognised space between existing
disciplines (or at least entail substantive interaction at the
inter-disciplinary
boundary). Instead, we often use it
synonymously
with
multidisciplinary , to refer
to
collaboration between disciplines working alongside one
another in the same sense that we use the term international
or interdepartmental to refer to collaborations between
governments and institutions (...).
The concept of transdisciplinarity goes beyond those of interdisciplinarity and
multidisciplinarity, in the sense that it refers to something more complex and
qualitatively different than the mere juxtaposition or combinations of different
disciplinary fields:
(<Multidisciplinary science is an assemblage of collaborating
disciplines. The whole may or may not be greater than the sum
of the parts. In transdisciplinary science, the whole is not just
greater than its derivative disciplinary parts but it has
qualitatively different properties. Further, transdisciplinary
science integrates its contributory disciplines such that they
are no longer evident as disaggregatable components.
Perhaps, then, we are describing a type of science which has
emergent properties that are not only different from, but not
its contributory
even necessarily predictable
from,
components (. .) )).
On this basis, according to Prof. McMichael, the two factors of collectiveness and
complexity have to be primarily kept in mind for a transdisciplinary approach to
succeed:
ctTransdisciplinary science (...) is by definition a collective
enterprise arising in response to the need to use humankinds
knowledge and analytic powers to understand large and
complex systems that are not referable to the intellectual
framework of any single scientific discipline or set of
disciplines (. .) M.

26

Beside them, synergy and co-operation

components of transdisciplinarity:

were isolated as two other crucial

((Transdisciplinarity entails a synergy between contributory

disciplines - between their conceptual modes and information
sets. This synergy, and the resultant emergent properties of the
scienttfic discourse and conceptualisation, are most likely to
occur when a diverse mix of scientists cooperatively tackle
research questions that are embedded in large, complex and
dynamic systems (. .) )).
In the end, Prof. McMichael, referring to the characteristics of the ideal participants to
a transdisciplinary research programme, highlighted the concepts of willingness to
trust as well as mutual interest and commitment, identifying these individual
attitudes as additional crucial components for the success of the endeavour..
*

Furthermore, it has to be mentioned that, in the perspective of transdisciplinarity, Prof.

McMichael, felt the importance of briefly touching the issue of reductionist approach
in Western science. In this view, he stressed how the classical methods of Western
sciences conceive complex wholes as being reductively fractionable in a series of
leg0-like components to be analyzed in a mono-disciplinary way:
((There have always been complex, multi-faceted, problems for
scientists to think about. However, the classical methods of
Western science are explicitly reductionist.
With this
reductionism, we can learn about the complex whole by
separate studies of its component parts; we dis-assemble,
fractionate, and confine our gaze (...). Classical science
assumes a lego-like world, reducible to manageably
researchable parts. There is no expectation that the whole will
behave other than recognisably as the sum of its parts (...))J.
On the contrary, as he urged,
((there is a needfor approaches that can transcend the limited
horizons of existing disciplines and can look to wider
horizons, thereby accommodating new dimensions of
complexity, scale and uncertainty (. .) M.
He recalled the thoughts of Ravetz and Funtowicz who have described the methods of
the soft-sciences as
((free of reductionist and mechanistic assumption about the
way things relate and the way systems operate, (...) and of the
traditional expectation that science should deliver final
precise estimates unshrouded by uncertain@ (. ..) N.

27

The central point of this criticism is that

((some complex systems (...) may not be reducible to model
specification (...) and that science should not aspire to
uncertain@-pee exactitude (. ..) )J.

The final request of Prof. McMichael was to continue the struggle for the
establishment of transdisciplinary approaches in science, following the way of the many
scientists, who
cthave made explicit attempts to define approaches to research
that free themselves from the tenets and processes of orthodox
empirical reductionist science (. ..) H.

He concluded with the hope that the methods of soft-sciences will be able to
influence the hard-sciences, stressing that those who decide to approach the notion
of transdisciplinarity have to be
<<ready to feel comfortable with uncertainty and not to be
fearful of ignoranceu .

28

4.2.2 - Working Group #2:

What makes transdisciplinarity

succeed or fail?

To further explore the conditions that make transdisciplinarity succeed, Working

Group #2 developed Prof. McMichaels distinction between interdisciplinarity and
transdisciplinarity by focusing on a specific quote:
cdn transdisciplinary science, the whole is not just greater than
its derivative disciplinary parts, but it has qualitatively
different properties.
Further,
transdisciplinary
science
integrates its contributory disciplines such that they are no
longer evident as disaggregatable components)).
The greatest attention was given to this thought of Prof. McMichael, which hinted at
the transformative properties intrinsic in a transdisciplinary approach.
It is interesting to note that, by making explicit reference to the notion of
Ltransformation, Working Group #2 upheld, through a fascinating integration, the
findings of Working Group #l. The latter was, at that very moment and behind closed
doors, trying to define the concept of transdisciplinarity by exploring complementary
issues.
In fact, the element of transforming praxis isolated by Working Group #1 is logically
coincident with the transformative properties isolated by Working Group #2.
In both cases the active property of inducing a qualitative transformation.of the reality
gets attributed to transdisciplinarity.
Furthermore, Working Group #2 stressed that, in a transdisciplinary project, the team
is supposed to work in such a way that people themselves - and not only
knowledge - should undergo a transformative process and, consequently,
become trans.
In this light, Dr. Desmond Manderson proposed a new definition of transdisciplinarity,
more closely related to the complex but essential concept of transformation, which
constitutes a remarkable complement to the many others provided by Working
Group #1 :
CC
Transdisciplinarity

can be characterized as a transformative practice of knowledge)).

Proceeding towards a broad agreement upon the key factors needed to make
transdisciplinarity succeed, Working Group #2 endorsed the proposals of Prof.
McMichael and corroborated the need for mutual interest and willingness to trust,
as well as the capacity to be ready to feel comfortable with uncertain@ and not to
be fearful of ignorance, identifying all of them as crucial ingredients for a successful
transdisciplinary approach.

29

4.3.1 - Plenary 3: What global issues need Transdisciplinarity ?

Prof. William S. Fyfe (University of Western Ontario, Canada)

Prof. Fyfe focused in his talk on what he believes to be the global issues most urgently
in need of a transdisciplinary approach.
In addressing this topic, he did not make reference to any specific theoretical system of
thought, but rather preferred to present a series of concrete examples of failure and
success in transdisciplinarity drawn upon his professional experience.
A world with a human population moving to 10 billion, he explained, with Europe and
North America making up only 13% of population and with the rich-poor gap
growing, calls for sustainable life support systems i.e., systems that will not lead to the
destruction of the planet.
Prof. Fyfe highlighted how our standards of living and quality of life are related to such
systems, whose most basic ingredients include energy, food, water, air, materials and
biodiversity.
He also brought up the problem offood security, as a topic implying a transdisciplinary
approach, for it is related to factors like fluctuating climate, soil quality, water quantity
and quality, acid rains, ozone, etc.
Prof. Fyfe continued by pointing out how the growing complexity of the most
significant issues of our time requires an increasing active contribution of teams of
experts having different and complementary cultural backgrounds.
To use his own insightful words:
ctSpecialists cannot deal with these problemsx
He made reference to projects in which he is personally involved, clarifying how:
(<slowly we are beginning to accept the needfor new teams to
solve problems)).
These projects are actually built around several transdisciplinary

teams:

(<At a minimum we need biologists, soil scientists, water

specialists, geochemists, climatologists, engineers and, as
always, economists and sociologists. With the sociologists I
include all involved in education (. .) S.
In closing, Prof. Fyfe came back to this last idea, by stating that:
((Above all we need new education (...), since education is
determinant for any real freedom that peoples may achieve)).

30

4.3.2 - Working Group #3:

What global issues need transdisciplinarity?
Developing a collective reflection on the basis of Prof. Fyfes stimulating speech in the
course of the third plenary session, the participants endeavoured to widen the
perspective implicit in his talk, mostly focused on environmental problems,
The debate isolated four global issues that, according to the group, would mostly
benefit from a transdisciplinary approach:
Human aggression,
Harmonious distribution of resources;
Development of anthropocentric world views;
Realization of human potential and empowerment through education.
Particular urge was expressed for the world to undertake a shift from aggression to
harmony, a harmony which should characterize relationships among human beings as
well as between humans and other living beings.
In this regard, the working group identified education as a crucial topic of our time.
It was specifically recalled - and stressed - the final part of Prof. Fyfes
contribution:
CC
We need universal literacy, numeracy and science education;
but above all we need a new education)).
Moreover, the participants devoted their attention to TuansecforaZ2~~, a concept
calling for thorough reflection and specific analyses. A significant level of consensus
was reached on the utmost importance to consider transectorality in close relation
with the notion of transdisciplinarity.
Consequently, it was urged to convey and to transfer to the concept of
transectorality the many reflections started and the elucidation achieved on
transdisciplinarity.
There was a specific suggestion to make use of the new definition of transdisciplinarity
jointly presented by this working group, where the notion of integration was
highlighted once more:
((Transdisciplinarity
is the process characterized by] the
integration of efforts by multiple disciplines to address issues
or problems))
The findings of this Working Group were eventually integrated in a broader
perspective, where it is hinted that a transdisciplinary approach can produce insightful
outcomes also when applied to simpler issues (see 93.4).

31

4.4.1 -

Plenary 4: How do we research and evaluate Transdisciplinarity?

Prof. Eleonora Barbieri Masini (Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, Italy)

To overcome the intrinsic limits of a mono-disciplinary perspective to global issues,

Prof. Masini stressed the need to apply a transdisciplinary approach to
problem-solving.
She made reference to a significant study of the Club of Rome devoted to the so-called
global problematic i.e., an ensemble of problems requiring a plurality of
approaches provided by many disciplines together with a planetary perspective.
Prof. Masini made clear that, to characterize this study, which in the 70s had a
significant impact on the academic community, the concept of interdisciplinarity
should preferably be utilized.
In fact, in Prof. Masinis conception of interdisciplinarity, <<disciplines offer a parallel
analysis of problems)), while in a trasdisciplinary perspective ((disciplines offer their
spectfic approaches and even basic assumptions, to a dialogue, in order to address
complex issues together))
Further developments in the field of future studies have seen an intensified
perception of the importance of transdisciplinarity with an increasing awareness on the
need for a closer coordination, an integration among different disciplines.
Prof. Masini explained that the need to develop effective approaches and methods
through a yoint effort became clear, and how this can be achieved only in a
transdisciplinary perspective.
Nevertheless, she pointed out how transdisciplinarity is still perceived with scepticism,
thus encountering resistance in many fields of human and natural sciences.
Moreover, she added that transdisciplinarity, even though difficult to conceive in
theoretical terms, should not be seen as an abstract notion lacking of any significant
application, since, on the contrary, it is already being used by Future Studies.
Future studies as well as their techniques, e.g. Delphi and scenario-building, are
examples of global models and definitely transdisciplinary.
They attempt to
extrapolate trends of the past into the future and, on this basis, to build an image of
the future itself This is done through methods aiming at bringing closer the basic
assumptions of various disciplines to perform extremely rigorous although
non-predictive analyses.
Prof. Masini identified in this threefold quality of being global, transdisciplinary
and non-predictive the explanation of the many criticisms directed at Future Studies,
based on the <awareness that the many variables necessary to understand the world
are difficult to constrain in global mathematical models)).

32

To further elucidate the concept of transdisciplinarity, Prof. Masini shifted attention to

the notion of multidimensionality.
At first she went over Yehezekel Drors idea that in Future Studies there is not only a
relationship between disciplines, but also a contribution from various different
backgrounds, schools of thought and cultures.
Then she highlighted how Dror draws a correspondence between the two notions, by
saying that
ctmultidimensionality and transdisciplinariw are the opposite
of specialization, (...) which is itself part of the search for
greater and greater detail in the natural and social sciences M.
In closing, Prof. Masini underlined in a clear and unambiguous manner the decisive
role of transdisciplinarity in addressing complex societal issues in the age of
globalization:
((Thus transdisciplinarity can be said to be crucial at this
point in time for historical reasons and to aadress a rapidly
changing society. Without transdisciplinarity we risk making
mistakes of such gravity as to threaten the very survival of
humanity.
In an age of specialization, unless transdisciplinarity
is recognised as an important tool for
understanding a complex and rapidly changing society,
dangers are ahead or already in the making N.

33

4.4.2 - Working Group #4:

How do we research and evaluate transdisciplinarity?
To analyze the issue of research and evaluation of the processes in which a
transdisciplinary approach is expected to be used, the participants of Working
Group #4 referred to Professor Masinis report on her research.
A working definition of transdisciplinarity, assumed as main reference for the internal
discussion was elaborated. In their view, transdisciplinarity is conceived as a
c{multiplicity of disciplines that must integrate to solve a problem)).
Based on this problem-solving-oriented
instrumental conception, essential steps to
undertake fruitful research based on a transdisciplinary approach were isolated.
An unambiguous definition of the research object was identified as preliminary
requirement. Consequently, it was stated, a clear outline of the most important goals of
the research itself should also be provided.
It could be noted that, although at a first instance it would seem inappropriate to edge
in advance the aim of a research - and consequently to force its possible unexpected
findings into an a priori frame - an explicit unmistakable description of the
conceptual framework of the inquiry has been proved fruitful exactly when, as it is
often the case, a reorganization of the research itself is needed.
Furthermore, it was made clear how the transdisciplinary team has to be preferably
formed by people having dtfferent cultural backgrounds.
It was a widely accepted opinion that this team is supposed to utilize transdisciplinary
processes and methods of analysis to reach an immediate provisional outcome, which
has to be immediately evaluated.
It was suggested that as fruitful evaluation technique one could try to answer questions
like:
a.
b.

does the outcome meet the goals fixed at the beginning of the research itself?
does the outcome show an underlying consistent way of inquiry?, etc.

This outcome, once methodologically analyzed, should be used as input for new
transdisciplinary investigations to be carried out both within the same research
programme and in other theoretical domains.
Future disciplinary practices are also supposed to be positively affected by this
feedback: this is a further element endorsing a conception of transdisciplinarity not
alternative but rather complementary to the notion of discipline.
In this view, the development of transdisciplinary methods and principles is intended to
support the various disciplines in increasing their cohesion and consistency.

34

Conclusion:
Transdisciplinarity

as self-transformation

Conclusion:

Transdisciplinarity

as self-transformation

This Symposium gave definite shape to a widespread need: beginning a systematic

attempt to overcome the limitations of the present knowledge base, increasingly
perceived as unable to address crucial issues of this time. This process entails a
fundamental implication: going beyond the habit of approaching problems in a
mono-disciplinary way.
Eight thousand five hundred and thirty (8,530) definable fields of knowledge were
recognized in a study conducted in 1992, as the result of both increasing
specialization and overlapping domains. During the Symposium it was made clear
how historically drawn boundaries between disciplines should be re-examined, and
that space has to be given to new strategies of integration of knowledge.
At the same time, the need to overcome some already existing perspectives was
stressed. Such traditional approaches, while hinting at new dimensions of knowledge,
remain fundamentally tied to disciplinary limitations.
This is the case for those forms of multi-disciplinarity
which consist of the
juxtaposition of several mono-disciplinary approaches, as well as for an interdisciplinarity
which involves interactions only at the margins of individual
disciplines; these interactions mostly focus on the findings, entirely leaving out
theories and methods.
Both multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity are not effective remedies to the ongoing fragmentation of knowledge inasmuch as, through simple juxtaposition or
assemblage of approaches, they do not reach the dimension of integration required
by the fundamental unity underlying all forms of knowledge.
*

The notion of integration was clearly set as the scope of this Symposium, where the
concept of trans-disciplinarity
was seen as the path back from the chaos, the
antidote to fragmentation of knowledge, the way towards integrative processes
and intepated knowledge.
It was particularly identified that problems are such because they are addressed too
narrowly. Indeed, the means to address global and complex issues do not lie in interdisciplinary approaches, in which different disciplines are converging but not
interacting. A widening of perspectives is required.
The answer, could be found in a trans-disciplinary
dimension, where a mere
parallel analysis of a problem from various disciplines is overcome by a dialogue
starting from the different assumptions of segmented domains.
This dialogue is intended to bring to light hidden glimpses of unquestioned
assumptions, and to unfold them into explicit methodologies on which the analysis
can be focused.

37

Conceptual and methodological tools must be rethought. The fundamentals of each

discipline re-examined to reveal their conceptual presuppositions and limitations.
On the basis of these analyses, integrated approaches can be found, as profound
connections among disciplines can be identified at methodological level.
Transdisciplinarity is therefore conceived as meta-methodology: a transdisciplinary
approach takes as its object precisely the different methodologies of the various
disciplines, in order to transform and to transcend them.
Transcending and transforming are seen here not as vague procedures to replace
disciplinary methodologies with global, fuzzy, problem-solving techniques.
On the contrary, they are conceived as rigorous processes of abstraction, inasmuch as
a transdisciplinary approach, intended to tackle global problems, needs to be general
without being generic.
At the same time, these processes must not be rigid, since facing complex issues calls
for a continuous critical reflection on the criteria to be used in transforming and
adapting conceptual tools to many variable factors.
*

A transdisciplinary approach is not only helpful to better address crucial known

issues. It also makes new problems emerge, as some problems are unthinkable due to
the lack of an adequate structure of knowledge.
In this regard, transdisciplinarity helps in facing the complexity of reality, through the
generation of new metaphors to communicate thoughts and to increase knowledge.
Transdisciplinarity opens the eyes and widens perspectives since, to improve
understanding, it uses concepts not owned by a single discipline. Transdisciplinarity is
the intellectual space where the nature of the manifold links among isolated issues can
be explored and unveiled.
Through the metaphors engendered in such intellectual space, issues can be rethought, alternatives can be re-considered, inter-relations can be revealed. A whole
range of causes can be delineated and evaluated in unusual ways.
Several metaphors were used during the Symposium, to help in the comprehension of
complex or abstract issues. Most of them were intended to clarify the differences
among multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary ways of approaching problems, and to
highlight the need for a shift towards transdisciplinarity.
*

Multidisciplinarity
can be seen as a banquet where various people bring different
dishes, all of which are placed on a table. The outcome of the juxtaposition is merely
accidental. Many people could bring the same dish. Others could bring totally

38

unexpected food. There is room for a high risk of waste of resources and for a lack of
coherence.
Interdisciplinarity can be seen as a banquet where various people bring different
dishes, independently selected by knowing what the others are not bringing. To
improve presentation and taste of the food, all dishes are entirely or partially
combined at the last minute to compose new courses. The outcome of the assemblage
lies in the final work of composition, which is solely responsible for minimising waste
and maximising coherence.
Transdisciplinarity,
meanwhile, is like a banquet where various people have
collectively decided in advance what to cook using the ingredients and the expertise
available, and they bring many dishes prepared in collaboration. Nobody can tell to
whom the various elements belong and who composed them: the team-work has to be
acknowledged.
In the transdisciplinary banquet there is an optimal use of resouces, as no dish is
partially utilized, or just left over. There is an optimal concordance of tastes, as a great
amount of time is spent in conceiving the many dishes in advance exactly with a view
to their integrated fruition. The team-members acquire new expertise through their
interaction. They improve their capacity of listening. They learn that they can produce
a successful outcome, although they are not in possession of all the ingredients,
neither are they familiar with all the cooking procedures. They understand that, when
they are not doing the entire job - their entire job - they are paradoxically, all
together, getting the job done.
*

The metaphor of the banquet can be trans-posed to bring some light on the work of
a group of experts trying to address an issue. This exemplification elucidates once
more the different perspectives of multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary approaches.
In a multidisciplinary approach, a series of experts belonging to different disciplines
are separately requested to prepare a dossier where an issue is globally tackled.
Although the experts are aware of each other, they try, without any exchange of
information or meeting, to wholly address the issue by using theories and methods of
their own disciplines. The outcome is a set of dossiers thoroughly analyzing the
problem, without any substantive interaction between the experts and the disciplines,
On the one hand, this approach is an improvement in respect to a mono-disciplinary
one, as it does reveal multiple points of view.
On the other hand, by proposing a juxtaposition of different viewpoints, this approach
leaves out the possibility of assembling the various perspectives in a sort of soundlycomposed unique view.
This means that, by reading the dossiers, one would most likely run into all sorts of
contradictory statements on the nature of the issue, on the possible ways of analyzing
it, and on the possible solution(s) to be implemented. Basically there would easily be
a great level of discordance on what is under study, on how to study it, on what are

39

the pertinent elements to take into account, on what are the possible acceptable ways
of addressing the issue, etc.
The immediate outcome would be that, out of such a richness of perspectives and
variety of analyses, not a single coherent operative proposal could possibly come up.
*

In an interdisciplinary approach, a series of experts belonging to different disciplines

are separately requested to contribute to a dossier by preparing an essay where a
specific aspect of a complex issue is examined.
The experts are aware of each other, but they are also aware that they are focusing on
different aspects of the problem. As the specific topics were already attributed to each
discipline on the basis of the traditional definition of its knowledge domain, the
experts exchange information just to find a final agreement on the boundary given to
each other. Once the borders are set, each expert unquestionably uses theories and
methods of the specific discipline selected to better address the specific topic.
Eventually, once the research papers have been finalized, an interaction among the
experts takes place, in the form of information exchange on the findings or on the
working methods of the different disciplines.
Thus, any possibility to compose the different perspectives and the various analyses
into coherent operative proposals resides in the final activity of the person(s)
compiling the individual papers. Solely this conclusive assemblage - and maybe an
introduction prepared ad hoc - is supposed to make the essays interact a
posterior?.
Otherwise, the inter-disciplinary
multi-disciplinary essays.

dossier would look like a mere collection of isolated

*

In a transdisciplinary approach to a given issue, a team of experts reflects together, as

they are supposed to redraw the traditional grid, which segments the issue into
disciplines.
In this exercise they have to consider each discipline as relevant, but none of them as
hegemonic. They have to re-create the object of study by considering it under many
different viewpoints. They have to try focusing mainly on the kind of connections,
which have not been considered before. They have to communicate. They have to
cross the entrenched border of their own disciplines by exchanging ideas and different
perspectives. They have to find new metaphors for sharing and understanding.
They have to increase their mutual awareness on the problems, by multiplying the
ways in which ideas are expressed. They have to getinto a self-critical disposition, by
putting up for discussion their many views on the issue.

40

In a transdisciplinary
dimension, people get transformed into a team, as
transdisciplinarity is intended not only as integration of knowledge on a considered
object but, mainly, as mutual assimilation of understanding among the examining
subjects.
In a transdisciplinary dossier, one does not perceive whether a specific paragraph is
written by the lawyer or by the sociologist; as one does not distinguish between the
contribution of the physicist and the one of the anthropologist; or between the point of
view of the biologist and the one of the epistemologist.
As in an orchestra, everybody plays a part of the score making use of the various
insights received by the colleagues and, together with them, tries to convey
consonance and harmony into a symphony.
*

In the XVI century, Montaigne asserted that the most universal quality is diversity.
Transdisciplinarity has to be a space where there is room for diversity, for respectful
confrontation and mutual transformation. It has to be a space where people strive for
synergy, as much as they are willing to trust, to be comfortable with the uncertainty,
and not to be fearml of their ignorance. As the real issue is not in what one knows or
does not know, but in what one assumes to know.
As well synthesised by Dr. Manderson, transdisciplinarity has to be the meeting
point of people and minds. It has to be an encounter among transformed people
with a scienttjic mind that, as Francis Bacon remembers, is a mind
(<nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblance
of things, and at the same time steady enough to fix and
discern their subtle differences; endowed by nature
with the desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to
meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to reconsider,
carefulness to set in order; neither aflecting what is
new, nor admiring what is old and hating every kind of
impostrrre~~.

41

Reference Materials

The International Center of Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET), a non-profit

organization located in Paris since 1987, has a joint project with UNESCO on
Transdiciplinay evolution of the University.
The Charter of Transdisciplinarity was adopted at the First World Congress of
Trandisciplinarity, held in Portugal in November 1994, with the patronage of CIRET.

CHARTER

OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY

(adopted at the First World Congress of Trandisciplinarity,

Convent0 da Arrcibida, Portugal, November 2-6, 1994)

Preamble
Whereas the present proliferation of academic and non-academic disciplines is
leading to an exponential increase of knowledge which makes impossible any
global view of the human being,
and Whereas only a form of intelligence able to grasp the planetary dimension
of current conflicts could face the complexity of our world and the present
challenge of a material and spiritual self-destruction of the human species,
and Whereas life on earth is seriously threatened by the triumph of technoscience which obeys only the frightening logic of productivity for
productivitys sake,
and Whereas the present rupture between an increasingly quantitative
knowledge and an increasingly impoverished inner identity is leading to the
rise of a new brand of obscurantism whose individual and social consequences
are incalculable,
and Whereas the historically unprecedented growth of knowledge is increasing
the inequality between those who possess and those who do not, thus
engendering increasing inequality within each nation and between the different
nations of our planet,
and Whereas, at the same time, these challenges also have a positive
counterpart whereby this extraordinary development of knowledge could
eventually lead to an evolution not unlike that of the primates into homo
sapiens :

In consideration of all the preceding, the participants of the First World

Congress of Transdisciplinarity
(Convent0 da Arrabida, Portugal, 2-7
November 1994) have adopted the present Charter, which comprises the
fundamental principles of the community of transdisciplinary researchers, and
constitutes a personal moral commitment which every signatory of this
Charter makes, without any legal or institutional constraint.
Article 1 :
Any attempt to reduce the concept of human being to a mere definition and to
reduce it to a formal structure, no matter what, is incompatible with a
transdisciplinary vision.
Article 2 :
The recognition of the existence of different levels of reality governed by
different types of logic is inherent in the transdisciplinary attitude. Any
attempt to reduce reality to one single level governed by a single form of logic
is incompatible with transdisciplinarity.
Article 3 :
Transdisciplinarity
complements the disciplinary approach. Out of the
dialogue between disciplines it produces new results and new interactions
between them. It offers a new vision of nature and reality. Transdisciplinarity
does not seek a mastery in several disciplines but aims to open all disciplines
to what they have in common and to what lies beyond their boundaries.
Article 4 :
The keystone to transdisciplinarity is the semantic and effective unification of
the distinctions between what runs through and what is beyond different
disciplines. It presupposes an open-minded rationality, through a fresh look at
the relativity of such notions as definition and objectivity. An excess of
formalism, rigidity of definitions and a claim to total objectivity, implying the
exclusion of the subject, can only have a negative effect,
Article 5 :
The transdisciplinary vision is determinedly open in that it transcends the field
of the exact sciences by encouraging them to communicate and be reconcilied
with not only the humanities and the social sciences, but also with art,
literature, poetry and spiritual experience.
Article 6 :
In relation to interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity is
multireferential and multidimensional. While fully recognising the various
approaches to time and history, transdisciplinarity does not exclude a
transhistorical horizon.

Article 7 :
Transdisciplinarity constitutes neither a new religion, nor a new philosophy,
nor a new metaphysics, nor a science of sciences.
Article 8 :
The dignity of the human being is both of planetary and cosmic dimensions.
The appearance of human beings on Earth is one of the stages in the history of
the Universe. The recognition of the Earth as our home is one of the
imperatives of transdisciplinarity. Every human being is entitled to a
nationality, but as an inhabitant of the Earth is also a transnational being. The
acknowledgement by international law of this twofold belonging, to a nation
and to the Earth, is one of the goals of transdisciplinary research.
Article 9 :
Transdisciplinarity leads to an open attitude towards myth, religion
towards those who respect them in a transdisciplinary spirit.

and

Article 10 :
No single culture is privileged over all other cultures. The transdisciplinary
approach is inherently transcultural.
Article 11 :
An appropriate education should not value abstraction over other forms of
knowledge. It should teach contextual, concrete and global approaches,
Transdisciplinary education is founded on the reevaluation of the role of
intuition, imagination, sensibility and the body in the transmission of
knowledge.
Article 12 :
The development of a transdisciplinary economy is based on the postulate that
the economy should serve the human being and not the reverse.
Article 13 :
The transdisciplinary ethic rejects any attitude which refuses dialogue and
discussion, no matter whether the origin of this attitude is ideological,
scientistic, religious, economic, political or philosophical. Shared knowledge
should lead to a shared understanding based on an absolute respect for the
collective and individual diversities united by our comon life on one and the
same Earth.

Article 14 :
Rigour, openness , and tolerance are the fundamental characteristics of the
transdisciplinary attitude and vision. Rigour in argument, taking into account
all existing data, is the best barrier to possible distortions. Openness involves
an acceptance of the unknown, the unexpected and the unforeseeable.
Tolerance implies an acknowledgement of the right to ideas and truths
opposed to our own.
Final Article :
The present Charter of Transdisciplinarity was adopted by the participants of
the first World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, with no claim to any authority
other than their own achievements and activities. In accordance with
procedures to be agreed upon by transdisciplinary-minded reserarchers of all
countries, this Charter is open to the signature of any person interested in
promoting progressive national, international and transnational measures to
ensure the application of these Articles in everyday life.
Convent0 da Arrdbida,

6th November 1994

Eleonora Barbieri Masini

Professor of Future Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences
Pontiticia Universita Gregoriana
Rome, Italy
Some considerations on Transdisciplinarity
In a world of increasingly rapid and interrelated change, it is obvious that it is not
possible to look at social problems or issues from one point of view or perspective.
The complexity of problems is such that it is necessary to address issues using a
variety of different disciplinary approaches. Hence, the need for cooperation among
disciplines, hence the need for interdisciplinarity as a principle (if not a practice),
hence the importance of multiculturality (. .).
Looking ahead needs not only many disciplines looking at problems, but also a
coordination of disciplines. It was on this basis that transdisciplinarity emerged.
The difference between an interdisciplinary and a transdisciplinary approach is as
follows : in the former, disciplines offer a parallel analysis of problems (...) ; in the
latter, disciplines offer their .specific approaches and even basic assumptions, to a
dialogue, in order to address complex issues together. In the case of
transdisciplinarity, approaches and even methods are developed in a joint effort,
something which is indeed difficult in complex societies, but very necessary (. .).
For some authors, the concept of transdisciplinarity
is enriched by
multidimensionality. Yehezekel Dror believes that (...) not only there is a relationship
between disciplines, but also a contribution from different backgrounds, schools of
thought and cultures (.. .).
Multidimensionality and transdisciplinarity are the opposite of specialization, one of
the characteristics of the industrial age, which is in itself part of the search for greater
and greater detail in natural and social sciences (...),
Thus transdisciplinarity can be said to be crucial at this point in time for historical
reasons and to address a rapidly changing society. Without transdisciplinarity we risk
making mistakes of such gravity as to threaten the very survival of humanity. In the
age of specialization, unless transdisciplinarity is understood as an important tool for
understanding a complex and rapidly changing society, dangers are ahead or already
in the making (. .).
Experiences with Transdisciplinarity

- Successes

For almost a decade in the framework of the United Nations University I developed
comparative research on the effects of macro-events on the unit family and on women
in eight developing countries (.,.). The whole of the first year of the research was
devoted to identifying a transdisciplinary approach suited to such a vast multicultural
project.

Eight groups of researchers in each country had to accept the transdisciplinary

approach and methods (...). They indeed showed that it is possible to have
transdisciplinary research involving women researchers in totally different cultural
contexts. The success was mainly due to commitment and opennes of the (mostly
young) researchers involved in the project.
Experiences with Transdisciplinarity

- Failures

What was lacking was the will to work in a transdisciplinary way, that is the
necessary humility to try and find a common set of basic principles which could be
followed by methods of analysis that were gradually accepted by all. Each participant
was very strong and absolutely sure of his/her discipline and standing and unwilling to
find a common starting point (...).
The project could have been an important moment of reflection, ten years prior to the
emergence of the key issue of the discrepancy between development as economic
growth and development as related to all aspects of the human being(...). The
unwillingness to work in a transdisciplinary manner was the default (...).
In the [successful] example there was instead (...) a willingness of the people involved
to work in a transdisciplinary way, even at the risk of loosing their own strong
disciplinary approach, and (. .) the objective was more important than the personality.

Gavan J. McDonell
Professor at School of Arts and Technology Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia
Disciplines as cultures: towards reflection and understanding
[Transdisciplinarity]
stands in a long line of endeavours to produce the linked
accomplishments of integrated knowledge and universal language (...).
In the search for comprehensive knowledge and universal language lay the hope that
human endeavour was capable of producing forms of knowledge which could express
reliable, comprehensive and universally rational accounts of the world (. .).
Broadly and starkly expressed (...) in recent theorising on the conditions for the social
production of knowledge, there are two polar camps in philosophy and social theory:
one, often called postmodernist, and much the more popular and influential,
emphasises and celebrates the fragmentation of knowledge and disciplines in our
world (...). Those in the other camp seek to put in modern terms the Enlightenment
hopes of a universal reason, shared, emancipator-y knowledge, and moral consensus
on action (...).
I want to outline a project which (. ..) seeks to develop, as a first stage, cosmopolitan
discourses of reflection and understanding among diverse cultures, including diverse
cultures of knowledge. It is in this direction that I suggest we should move in
considering the possibilities of cooperation among disciplines (. .).
I regard a discipline as residing in a cultural formation comprising a group of people
who, both explicitly and implicitly, share and practice a form of scientific and
professional knowledge which they regard as distinct. There is necessarily involved
here a shared acceptance, also both explicit and implicit, of structures of uncertainty
and ignorance (. )
I would like to suggest that we call multidisciplinary studies a collaboration among
experts, members of different disciplines, where the relation among them is
associative, ie where the work of each of them is added to that of all the others (...).
In interdisciplinary studies, I suggest, the connection is relational, ie, where the
disciplines collaborate in such a way that each takes up some of the assumptions and
worldviews and languages of the others (...).
Transdisciplinary therefore would exist, according to this model, where the
integrating relationship is taken to the extent of there being a transcendent language, a
metalanguage, in which the terms of all the participant disciplines are, or can be,
expressed (. ..).

Disciplines as cultural forms

I want to introduce a claim about knowledge (. .) in that its various forms are cultural
productions arising from specific forms of culture. I want to suggest that from this it
follows that a form of knowledge culture comes with, indeed is constituted in, a form
of language, a custom of practice, an economy of means, a structure of power, a rule
of justice, an archive of narratives of identity and tradition. And at all these levels language, practice, means, rewards, power, justice, identity, tradition - change
constantly ensues.
The interaction among disciplines (. .) does not involve simply an exchange of
concepts, a sharing of information, a rustle of eager and enquiring conversation; it
only takes place within an engagement, and very likely conflict, between cultures.
There is always the necessity to engage in interdisciplinary translation, and it is
almost inevitable that there will be attempts to establish the dominance of a particular
language game. The characteristic of a cultural form, any cultural form, which I want
to emphasize is its possession of a distinctive language, with all that that implies in
terms of the shared and the different, the familiar and the alien, the domestic and the
exotic (. .).

The postmodern critique

The view of nature and interactions of contemporary forms of knowledge, which
holds most of the attention in philosophic and culture-theoretic discourses, is the
post-structuralist and post-modernist one. Briefly, this is that forms of knowledge are
submitted to relentless processes of fragmentation to produce an ongoing, confusing
but ultimately liberating and empowering diversity of knowledges and opinions - the
bringing down of long oppressive forces of centralised authority and meaning (. .).
Lyotard has been one of the most articulate of those postmodern writers, largely
French, who followed the explorations by the earlier structuralists, such as
Levi-Strauss, Piaget, Lacan, of the idea set out by Saussure that all languages are
arbitrary systems of different signs. That is, there is no necessary connection in a
language between the sign and the referent (the object in the world to which it refers).
The post-structuralist and post-modernist went further and emphasised that the
connection between the sign and the signifier (loosely, its meaning), is necessarily
unstable and indeterminate, an overlay upon overlay of ambiguity and redundancy
(...).
But above all, Lyotard and the post-modernists celebrated the splintering of meaning
and the generation of new languages (. .). And, importantly for our subject here, the
fact that nobody speaks all those languages, that there is (can be?) no universal
metalanguage, that there is constant competition (. .) in this new era of the search for
instabilities and contradictions of meaning (. ).

Discourses of knowledge and action

Attractive though in its terms of the liberation of the possibility (. .) post-modernism
is fatally disabled, in crucial respects, for the enterprise we consider here (. .). The
social order and any form of social action require agreed norms of meaning and it is
action which is our target when we seek to promote greater cooperation among
disciplines (. .).
Nowhere have the implications for social and political action (. . .) or reaching
practical understandings through processes of communication
been more
systematically examined than in the work of the contemporary German philosopher
and social theorist Jiirgen Habermas (. . ).
Habermass theory of communicative action argues that the grounding of the social
order and its legitimation in modern, pluralist, post-traditional society is to be sought
among the participants (. ).
One of his sympathetic but critical commentators (. .) Gerard Delanty, [makes] an
extended analysis of communicative theory in the context of the cultural and
collective identity conflicts of our time, in an epoch in which, in Habermass words
<<theaccelerated pace of change in modern societies explodes all stationary forms of
life. Culture survive if they draw the strength to transform themselves from criticism
and secession)) ( ) .
Delanty (. .) argues that universal truth and morality can be articulated in more than
one cultural form and more than one logic of development. He attempts to reorient
Habermass Occidental rationalism to a cosmopolitan model of cultural
transformation. Such transformation must proceed in two stages, he argues, of, firstly,
reflection and understanding, and, only secondly, of deliberation and agreement. cc27ze
aim of reflection is mutual understanding, not consensual agreement (...) Reflective
discourse is more concerned with bringing to a heightened level of awareness cultural
potentials and (with) recognising difSerence>>(. .). This is a thought, which can bear
careful consideration when we try here to articulate the conditions for cooperations
among different, and often contending, disciplinary cultures (. . .).

Conclusion
I have extensively promoted the considerable possibilities for systematic
interdisciplinary activity in education and other policy contexts, but I confess that my
personal experience has caused me to be sharply aware of the difficulties of this sort
of cooperation (. .).
Like others here I have had an interdisciplinary career (. .). At each transition I have
had to become sensitive to sharply diverging cultural assumptions, languages, values,
practices and power structures. One litterally changes, or anyway significantly
modifies, ones identity at each taking up of a new tribal membership (. . .).

It has been made very clear to me that one of the reasons that I have sometimes been
able to talk about, say, economics to engineers, or political theory to the two other
disciplines, and receive an interested audience, is that they continue to see me as, at
least to some extent, one of them, to whom a measure of loyalty and trust is due (...).
There most certainly are urgent needs for tolerant cooperation and productive discours
among the great scientific disciplines of contemporary civilization. This is very clear
to us when we attempt to deal with the pressing issues which that civilization, and
those cultures of knowledge, and let us be sure, of ignorance, have themselves
brought upon us. But there is lacking at present a widespread, stable and influential
basis for a shared identity of inter-, let alone trans-, disciplinarity. We have to start by
expanding our disciplinary communities into more cosmopolitan cultures. It is my
argument that we should approach this through the encouragement of mutually
respectful processes of both reflection and understanding.

Anthony M. McMichael
Professor of Epidemiology
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
University of London
London, England
Types of science: mono/multi/inter/trans
Scientists talk of monodisciplinary, multidisciplinary,
recently, transdisciplinary research (, .),

interdisciplinary

and, more

The term interdisciplinary is often used loosely. It perhaps ought to refer more
specifically to research topics and methods that occupy newly-recognised space
between existing disciplines (or at least entail substantive interaction at the
inter-disciplinary
boundary). Instead, we often use it synonymously with
multidisciplinary, to refer to collaboration between disciplines working alongside
one another (. .).
The odd one out of this typology of scientific research is transdisciplinary. It refers
to something more than combinations of, or connection between, disciplines (. .).
Maybe some semantic analogy can help us to distil1 the special meaning of
transdisciplinary ? We export and import across a specified boundary ; we can
deport or report across the same boundary. But when we transport we refer, at least,
to a process of moving something across an intervening space. Transportation thus
entails a new and substantive action or experience. (. .) The idea of transportation
accommodates this extra notion of an emergent experience, an emergent property
(...).
The essence of the prefix trans is well captured in the distinction between
multinational and transnational companies, (, .) The former referred to (. .) large
companies [which] established subsidiaries in many countries, each subsidiary being
based in the local national economy and being (somewhat) accountable to that
jurisdiction. In contrast, transnational companies transcend national boundaries and,
increasingly, operate free of national laws and regulations (. . ).
Such corporations thus acquire a truly global identity, and a style of operating that is
not reducible to, nor constrained by, the agendas, structures and processes of the
underlying national societies (. ),
By analogy, then, multidisciplinary
science is an assemblage of collaborating
disciplines. The whole may or may not be greater than the sum of the parts, In
transdisciplinary science, the whole is not just greater than its derivative disciplinary
parts but it has qualitatively different properties. Further, transdisciplinary science
integrates its contributory disciplines such that they are no longer evident as
disaggregatable components, Perhaps, then, we are describing a type of science
which has emergent properties that are not only different from, but not even
necessarily predictable from, its contributory components (. ).

Transdisciplinary
response to the
understand large
framework of any

Transdisciplinarity

science (. .) is, by definition, a collective enterprise, arising in

need to use humankinds knowledge and analytic powers to
and complex systems that are not referable to the intellectual
single scientific discipline or set of disciplines (. .).

: a new idea ?

Is transdisciplinarity a new idea in science ? There have always been complex,

multi-faceted, problems for scientists to think about. However, the classical methods
of western science are explicitly reductionist. With this reductionism, we can learn
about the complex whole by separate studies of its component parts ; we
dis-assemble, fractionate, and confine our gaze. Experiments thus typically entail the
artifice of holding constant other aspects of an otherwise complex real world.
Classical science assumes a lego-like world, reducible to manageably researchable
parts. There is no expectation that the whole will behave other than recognisably as
thesum of its parts (_ ).
In a world now beset by an array of largescale environmental and social problems,
many scientists are becoming uneasy about the imbalance in sciences repertoire of
conceptual approaches and research methods. There is a need for approaches that can
trascend the limited horizons of existing disciplines and can look to wider horizons thereby accommodating new dimensions of complexity, scale and uncertainty (. .).
There has been recent advocacy and discussion of post-normal science and of
soft-systems science. Both of these proffer non-traditional modes of thought,
analysis and assessment (. .).
Ravetz and Funtowicz have described post-normal science as a way of breaking free
of reductionist and mechanistic assumption about the way things relate and the way
systems operate, (. .) and of the traditional expectation that science should deliver
final precise estimates unshrouded by uncertainty (. ).
The point of the criticism is that some complex systems (. .) may not be reducible to
model specification (. .) and that science should not aspire to uncertainty-free
exactitude (. .).
Sofl system science recognises that, while orthodox science seeks to specify, objectify
and quantify, human observers apply differing constructs and perceptions to the
objects of science. These subjective dimensions are seen as legitimate part of a
complex reality being addressed. Soft system science also questions the need for a
hierarchical, disaggregatable, external reality, The world is understood to comprise
complex systems, typically entailing holarchical relations (and not hierarchical and
therefore disaggregatable relations).

Conclusion
Transdisciplinary science is not easy to define. It refers to something more than
interdisciplinary
and multidisciplinary
science. It entails a synergy between
contributory disciplines - between their conceptual modes and information sets. This
synergy, and the resultant emergent properties of the scientific discourse and
conceptualisation, are most likely to occur when a diverse mix of scientists
cooperatively tackle research questions that are embedded in large, complex and
dynamic systems. Most scientists have made explicit attempts to define approaches to
research that free themselves from the tenets and processes of orthodox empirical
reductionist science.
Experiences with Transdisciplinarity

- Successes

Upon reflection, it is easier to aspire to (and fantasise about) transdisciplinary research

than to actually, and knowingly, experience it. Most scientists find it hard enough to
break down disciplinary barriers and to even engage in interdisciplinary or
multidisciplinary discourse and research. Such contact across boundaries is as much
honoured in the breach as in the observance (. .).
The task was to get a group of (. .) scientists (. .) to seek a common understanding,
and a convergence of research methods (. .). The different groups of scientists should
therefore be able to perceive the issues in more generic fashion, and learn from one
another (. .).
There was a sense that disciplinary identities had partially dissolved, that a common
understanding of the problem had emerged, and that we were all grappling with the
same issue (. .).
These transdisciplinary research experiences are most likely to occur when there are
several persons present who have both an eclectic knowledge and a disregard for the
boundaries of other peoples intellectual turf There is a need to break down
conditioned patterns of deference to experts in other disciplines. Many experts have a
wood-versus-trees problem as a result of their confined experience (. ).

Sheldon Krimsky
Professor
Department of Urban & Environmental Policy
Tufts University
The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the term transdisciplinarity is
problem-centered investigations in contrast to discipline centered investigations.
Disciplines provide methods of investigation and theoretical frameworks that inform
the methods of inquiry. The questions asked are based on what has been accomplished
in the past (. .).
Transdisciplinarity suggests that ones queries and investigations are not bound by
disciplinary norms (. ).
Transdiscilpinarity also suggests that some questions are best treated by combining
two disciplines or at least their methods of analysis or theoretical frameworks. This
type of transdisciplinarity occurs throughout the scientific disciplines and serves as
the precursor to newly formed and hybridized disciplines. Fields like psycholinguistic
or sociobiology are some examples where two disciplines form a hybrid (. . .).
The methods or techniques of one discipline help to pose and answer questions
generally associated with another (. .).
The process of disciplinary mergers can expand the evidentiary base for an
established research program in one field. Some people might call this
interdisciplinarity, namely the partnerships of two disciplines to expand the theory of
evidence in support of certain hypotheses. Recall the partnership of Watson and Crick
form the disciplines of biology and physics that resulted in the discovery of the double
helix and eventually spawned the new field of molecular biology. Thats how
philosophy of science and linguistic philosophy developed (. .).
as meaning outside the
Some people might view the term transdisciplinarity
disciplines. It would be quite difficult to pose a query that is outside all disciplines.
Some discipline would claim the ownership of some part of the query. Likewise it
would be difficult to find a method of measurement or of acquiring information or
evidence that is outside all disciplines. So if we speak of transdisciplinarity
as
meaning outside of all disciplines (organized fields of knowledge) it imposes too
great a burden on the term (. ).
The term transdisciplinarity has a certain fluidity. It suggests that one is not bound
by disciplinary canons in any one field. The term transcendence is appropriate here.
There are certain classes of questions that trascend a single discipline. One such class
of questions pertain to the synthesis of knowledge. For example, what we can say
about human freedom and determinism. This question requires an examination of the
of many fields of knowledge,
including
genetics,
recent contributions
neurophysiology, physics, behavioral psychology, to name a few (. .).
In this context transdisciplinarity is a type of meta-analysis. It seeks unifying themes
from the contributions of diverse disciplines. It involves the construction of a
meta-theory from many disparate sources of knowledge (. .).

Other expressions of transdisciplinarity relate to questions that are at the interface

of two or more fields. Such questions are not so much outside disciplines but are
rather situated within overlapping disciplines (. .).
The broad scope of [a] hypothesis makes it transdisciplinary in the sense that the
evidence required to dispute it or to support it derives from many differen disciplinary
sources (. .). When such a broad hypothesis is framed that intersects so many
disciplines, the problems of confirmation or falsification are complicated (. . .).
The term transdisciplinarity
has several meanings to me; the trascendence of
disciplines for addressing the meta-questions; the intersection of two or more
disciplines
for
explicating
problems,
the
combination
of
and
methods/techniques/theory from several disciplines in the framing or testing of a
hypothesis (. .).
One of the most pressing issues of our time are the rising rates of diseases of unknown
etiology. In many industrialized nations, breast and prostate cancer fall into this
category. Much of the national research efforts directed at discovering the cause of
these diseases have followed a reductionist approach (_ ).
If we are going to make any progress in understanding what, if any, role chemicals
play in cancer it will take a major transdisciplinary effort (. .). To date, many of these
investigations are taking place in parallel. The linkages between the diverse
disciplinary studies (. .) are poorly developed. The synthetic activity of developing
meta-theory across the different studies and disciplinary approaches sees to be at its
infancy (. . .).
Transdisciplinary would require an openness to alternative modes of understanding
the disease and better linkages between the reductionist and more holistic paradigms
of inquiry (. .).
Each of these areas produce insights into a small piece of the problem. A more
integrative approach could yeld new fruitful and testable hypotheses. This is the
essence of transdisciplinarity - looking at the big picture and building a solution to a
problem from the disciplinary segments (. . .).

David Rapport
Professor
Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph
Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario

E.O. Wilson in his provocative essay Back From Chaos (. .) argues for a
fundamental unity that underlies all forms of knowledge (. .). He suggests that the
ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and the resulting chaos in philosophy are not
reflections for the real world but artifacts of scholarship (. .).
I would argue (and no doubt Wilson would agree) that the ongoing fragmentation has
far more than intellectual consequence. If thinking informs our activities in the real
world (. .), the fragmented approach to intellectual life has produced a chaotic and
disjointed world (. . .).
Transdisciplinarity is the path back from the chaos; the antidote to fragmentation of
knowledge (. .). One may quibble about the term - particularly the connotation of
discipline in an area in which holism should predominate without constraining
structures (. .). The prefix trans in the sense of transcendence implies emergence.
It is the emergence of integrative knowledge, insights, formed from the segmented
domains, that is the essence of transdisciplinarity (. .).
It is the tug of war between holism and reductionism that in principle comprises the
dynamic of progress in human understanding if only it was a fair game. But the allure,
seduction and power of specialization has rendered the match far less than fair.
Boundaries, intellectual and otherwise give rise to power and its many abuses.
Intellectual boundaries have spurred on their own brand of turf wars (. ).
Transdisciplinarity or Integrative Knowledge should not be at the expense of
Specialized Knowledge, but rather complement it (. , .). These are true complements:
the value of one without the other may be reduced to zero (. .).
The road out of the chaos is to reintegrate knowledge (. ,), Transcendence is the key
to discovery of the fundamental unity that Wilson and many other scholars throughout
the ages have referred to (. .).
My motivation was simply to use the knowledge I had acquired in one field
(economics) to provide a fresh perspective on another (ecology). By serendipity, these
explorations provided ecology, eventually, with a body of theory drawn directly from
models and concepts that had been widely used in economics for decades (. .).
Thus began a transfer across disciplinary boundaries from a field (micro-economics)
rich in concepts but poor in experimentation, to a field (ecology) rich in
experimentation but theory poor (. . .).

The models (. .) appear to be overly simplistic and invalid (. .). This was a case
where thinking about a complex behavior was governed by and large by available
mathematical techniques - which were capable of yielding precise solutions at the
expense of reality (. .).
Another shortcoming is the assumption that because one has integrated across several
fields, that is a sufficient integration for a complex problem. Often this is not the case
(. .). Thus arises the question of sufficiency in transcending a few disciplines. The
question can only be addressed relative to the problem context (. .).
Are the boundaries of the real world so large, that the quest for holism breaks down
from information overload? I would hope not. Rather the concept of the holon put
forth by Arthur Koestler, might offer a manageable approach. The holon concept is
embedded in a hierarchy of systems, each element in the hierarchy, self contained and
sustainable. In this conceptual scheme, one acknowledges the interplay of a host of
factors, but focuses on those that are essential to the maintenance of the level of
organization which constitutes the problem focus (. .).

Julie Thompson Klein

Professor of Humanities
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan

Definition
Before transdisciplinarity
entered the English language, the prefix trans was
already widely used in loan words from Latin. Trans, generally speaking, means to
move across, beyond or through (. . .). Trans infers something further, greater, more
powerful, or more encompassing (. .).
The currency of the term transdisciplinarity
derives from the first international
conference on interdisciplinarity hosted by the OECD and held in Nice in 1970. The
typology of definitions that emanated from that meeting and a subsequent book
distinguished interdisciplinarity
interaction of two or more disciplines from a more
comprehensive and systematic integration: ((Transdisciplinarity
Establishing a
common system of axioms for a set of disciplines)) (_ ),
A decade later, (. .) Raymond Miller (. .) defined transdisciplinary approaches as
holistic conceptual frameworks that transcend the narrow scope of disciplinary
worldviews. Through an overarching synthesis, these frameworks metaphorically
encompass parts of the material fields that disciplines usually handle separately (. .).
Some proponents believe their conceptual frameworks should replace existing
disciplinary approaches. Others put them forward as alternatives or as providers of
coherence when working across disciplines. Proponents also claim different degrees
of isomorphism between their schemes and the real world they purportedly
represent. In addition, the status of quantitative explanation and manipulation differs
from framework to framework (. .).
Knowledge Fields
When used as a description of knowledge fields, the word transdisciplinary
most often, to a synoptic breadth of vision or application (. .).

refers,

Any transdisciplinary effort is implicitly a critique of the existing structure of

knowledge, education, or culture (. .). Depending on the particular scheme,
disciplines are reconfigured as subordinate, instrumental or irrelevant (. .); there is a
deliberate effort to transform, not just transcend, disciplines (. ),
Broadening Networks
Clearly, transdisciplinarity means more than one thing. It is perceived as a vision of
knowledge, a particular theory or concept, a particular method, and an essential
strategy for addressing complex problems of the contemporary world (. ).

Knowledge Studies
Two major lessons emerge from knowledge studies. The first is that while some
transdisciplinary efforts have had greater impacts than others, even successful
frameworks encounter limits. General systems theory, for example, has enjoyed wide
influence as a theoretical framework, a conceptual approach in a wide variety of
particular fields, and a method of engineering practice. Despite its wide influence,
though, the broad unifying capacity of general systems tends to be splintered in
day-to-day practice (. .).
The second lesson is implied in the first. Transdisciplinary
promise, but they have also succumbed to reductionism (_ .).

schemes have holistic

The ideological problem of transdisciplinarity is laid bare in the problem of holism.

Any metaphor, theme, theory, or conceptual scheme (. .) implies a totality that cannot
be adequately explained by reduction to the properties of its parts. Campaigns for
unified knowledge, transdisciplinary schemes, and holistic thought promote a
metaphysical model that is an interrelated conception of the world. Ironically, though,
holisms have proved contradictory both within and among themselves (. .).
Working Examples
Beyond knowledge studies, I have also participated in the work of two centers, the
Worldviews project and the Centre International de Recherches et Etudes
Transdisciplinaires, CIRET (. ).
The Worldviews project (. ,) supported research projects aimed at integrating
knowledge (...), research on bridging language and mathematics, the natural and
social sciences, and the arts, sciences, and philosophies (. .).
The [CIRET], headquartered in Paris, is a smaller Transdisciplinary project informed
by the new worldview of complexity furnished by modern science. It aims at creating
connections in all areas of study, including religious studies, edukation, science,
culture, and the arts (. .).
The [CIRET] does not seek to create a new discipline or a new kind of specialist. It
aims, instead, to create a common workspace for transdisciplinary research across
all levels of education and a locus for gathering a self-organizing group of teachers
and students who are animated by transdisciplinary attitude (. .).
Transdisciplinnrity

in the service of pressing societal issues

Many pressing societal issues call for transdisciplinary research, problem-solving, and
education. Health care is a particularly compelling example that illustrates the
multiple levels across which transdisciplinarity must operate. Transdisciplinarity is
both an organizational problem and an epistemological problem (. ).
In the fields of child development and problems of the handicapped, a
transdisciplinary approach connotes more systematic delivery of health care than

occurs in a multidisciplinary
juxtaposition
coordination of their expertise (. ).

of specialists or interdisciplinary

A transdisciplinary team participates in more thorough assimilation of knowledge.

[The teams members] work together, rather than in a sequential separation, to
assimilate their knowledge and perspectives (. ,),
Because institutional arrangements differ, understandings of interdisciplinarity differ.
In daily work, the various meanings and arrangements have to be continually
reconstituted through informal negotiations. Work beyond single disciplines,
moreover, is always a situated endeavor. Broad knowledge is necessary, but it must
be contextualized in the local dynamics of practice (, ).
The epistemological problem of transdisciplinarity centers on the discrepancy
between a discipline-based concept of disease and what is often called a biosocial or
biopsychosocial model (. ).
A transdisciplinary model operates across, as it encompasses, [many] levels. The
human being is perceived to be an interacting, integrated whole (_ .),
[The] analysis of the medical curriculum underscores the difference between
instrumental bridges of specialist knowledges and a more transdisciplinary, critically
grounded conceptualization of the medical sciences (, .). Any valid therapeutics must
be based in a holistic view of the patient (. .).
When interdisciplinarity is conceived as a short-term solution to problems, as it has
been in many research centers focused on social and economic problems, questions of
transdisciplinary epistemology are replaced by the pragmatics of reliability,
efficiency, and commercial value. An epistemologically creative and critical stance
towards disciplinarity and professionalism holds out the promise of a more
comprehensive map of knowledge (. .).
Optional Insights
Michael Gibbons et al. put forward a new theory of transdisciplinarity. In ((The New
Production of Knowledge)) they contend that the dynamics of science and research in
contemporary societies have changed. [Beside] the traditional form of knowledge
production [there is a new one] characterized by closer interaction among scientific,
technological, and industrial modes of knowledge production. As such, it is
nonhierarchical, transdisciplinary, and characterized by heterogeneously organized
forms (. .).
[It] has several consequences that are relevant to any transdisciplinary project. Human
resources are more mobile, and the organization of research is more open and flexible,
Sites of knowledge production have also increased in number and in kind (. ,),
Collapse of monopoly power accompanies diversification, As the organizational
boundaries of control blur, the underlying notion of competence is redefined.
Resources, knowledge, and skills are being ceaselessly reconfigured (. .). Sites of
knowledge production and their networks of communication move on, creating a web
that reaches across the globe in growing density and connectivity (. .).

The task of transdisciplinarity is to create meaningful webs of meaning across form of

knowledge and action that are characterized by complexity, diffusion, permeation, and
heterogeneity. Toward our common task of figuring out which transdisciplinary web
we might spin collectively, I offer several discussion points that comprise imperative
for action:
The Information Imperative: While there is always more to learn, we already know a
great deal about how to integrate knowledge. This information, however, is not
always brought to bear on projects. Wider dissemination and use of existing
knwoledge is a crucial outcome for any transdisciplinary project.
The Disciplinary Imperative: In the past, disciplines have been dominated by what has
been called the received dogma of preparing students first in clearly-defined
disciplines. The dogma is blurring today. Complexity and interdisciplinarity are key
factors. Transdisciplinary efforts need to forged in the two-way traffic of Sommerville
and Rapports concepts of intellectual outerspace and innerspace of disciplines.
They comprise the spatial dynamics of transdisciplinarity.
The Electronic Imperative: Emerging from the first two imperatives, there is a glaring
need for a transdisciplinary electronic communication network. A global network
would enhance local projects by informing them with a broader and more connective
picture. A powerful website with hot links to a wide range of projects and a robust
discussion list would go a long way toward greater cooperation among now separated
projects, more extensive use of existing knowledge and information, and more
focused new projects.

Upendra Baxi
Professor, School of Law
University of Warwick
United Knogdom

Approaches to transdisciplinarity
The histories of the notions of discipline are also the histories of technologies and
forms of domination. Long before M. Foucault, for example, made us well aware that
the notion signifies regimes of power relations the complex relationship between
discipline, power and knowledge stood encapsulated in the ancient Sanskrit word:
shiksha which signifies both learning [education] and penalig (. ).
Traditions of knowledge have shown, all too often, that the Other of discipline has the
potential of causing paradigm shifts. These traditions have also shown the resilience
of dominant traditions, which tame and domesticate the dissenting academy into yet
another kind of flourishing enterprise. The profound interrogation of ways of knowing
of yesterday become the doxa of today (, . .).
Notions of reason and rationality
lie congealed in the notions about
transdisciplinarity. These perform versatile functions. Among these are:
banishment and exile of non-, pre-, anti- rational knowledge (. .),
a.
erection of barriers between reason and emotion (. .) and reason and vision
b.
(A
drawing of distinctions between hard and soft knowledges,
privileging forms of knowledge into named genres and bodies of knowing and
i:
knowledge (_ .).
Multi-, inter- and even trans- disciplinarity must bear its birthmarks, All these indicate
an active desire to go beyond ones discipline. (. ,) This desire signifies a
disciplines extraversion. One may extend ones disciplinary burdens but almost never
forsake the disciplinary identity, persona and tradition. For, Reason demands integrity
of epistemic selfhood, continuity with prescribed ways of privileged ignorance and
willful immersion in objects of knowledge (. .).
Should the world exist, canons of interpretation and formation of epistemic
communities require knowledges to be fragmented, and therefore specialized, for it to
be understood and mastered. The very notion of civilization since the Age of
Enlightenment is that knowledge is power as Joseph Kohler, a late nineteenth century
jurist defined it, civilization is a twofold process of mastering: of the self (. .) and the
world (...).
If transdisciplinarity
multi- disciplinarities,
surely are:
Equal respect
a.
the South, do

constitutes an epistemic break from the worlds of inter- and

too many reversals will have to ensue. Among these reversals
for the non-Western traditions of knowledge (we, most of us in
know the traditions from Descartes to Deridda, but please find a

b.
C.

d.

reference, even at random, to Buddha, Nagrajuna, Samkara, Kuatilya,

Barthirahri or even Gandhi in the contemporary European corpus);
Equal discursive dignity for organic knowledges: knowledges uncodified as
esoteric knowledges (. .);
Equal discursive dignity to the traditions of knowing in pre-colonial cultures,
especially traditions of knowing as women;
Equal discursive dignity to the indigenous jural and juristic traditions (even
Habermas, writing at the turn of the century marked by information
explosion shows no conception of anything remotely non-European in terms
of traditions of thought and praxis concerning rights and justice in the different
worlds).

Trans-disciplinarity

to my mind, has yet to be fully de-colonialized

Learning from transdisciplinarity

For me, transdisciplinarity consists in a dialog between the epistemic communities of
erudite knowledges and practitioners of organic knowledges. This becomes possible
only if equal discursive dignity is accorded to both types of knowledges.

Failures
The limits of multi-disciplinarity are the all too often shaped by the relationship
between knowledges and material interests they serve. This was manifested in my
fifteen year long engagement with the 200,000 (. .) victims of Bhopal catastrophe
(. .). Corporate science was not, following classical models of causality, abZe to
extrapolate with any degree of certitude the impact of this massive release [of 47 tons
of methylicosynate gas] on human beings (. .). Epistemic humility in face of mass
disaster caused by hazardous science and technology is matched only by imperial
arrogance in ameliorating potentials for the wretched of the earth. Causal agnosticism
reigns supreme in the very moment of catastrophe.
These carefully choreographed rhythms (confidence in modern science and
technology and the cultivated inability to relate catastrophes to causes) summates
what Ulrich Beck has described as the creation of the global risk society, marked by
the registers of organized irresponsibility and organized impunity of capital intensive
corporate science and technology.
These registers also modulate the social technology of law and rights. With all its
impregnation by the imaginative enunciation of human rights rethoric, modern law
assumes the figure and feature of a bystander. Not merely does it mutely witness the
annihilation of the rights-regimes by risk-regimes. It also pervasively disarticulates
victims of mass disaster.
Transdisciplinarity arrives at the moment of crisis in the discourse of human rights
accountability of the foremost practitioners of science and aggregations of global
capital and technology.

Desmond Manderson
Senior Lecturer in the School of Law
Macquarie University
Sydney, Australia

Some considerations about transdisciplinarity:

a new metaphysics?

The development of disciplinary structures of thinking within universities in the

nineteenth century (. .) produced both blindness and insight. Insight, certainly, by
encouraging a deeper knowledge of increasingly specific subject matters. But
blindness likewise, since this specificity was achieved at the expense of a broadness
of vision. There was an increase of expertise but a loss of imagination (. .). It is now
apparent that in the many areas the marginal rate of return on increased insights has
long since been outweighed by the marginal cost of blindness (, .).
Within particular disciplines, specialisation has become an institutional rather than an
intellectual demand. Increasingly it is issues like professional legitimacy, funding
models, and career advancement, which drive the pressure towards ever greater
expertise over ever smaller areas (. .).
The intellect of human beings is not naturally confined: we draw connections, we are
curious, we seek truths in many spheres. We use all our life to understand our life.
The compartmentalisation of thinking (, .) fails to capture either how human beings
relate to the world, or what excites them. To make a bold claim: it is not a lack of
intellectual power, which inhibits us from solving problems; it is boredom and
disinterest (. .).
Interdisciplinarity attempts to combine more than one disciplinary framework, but
without in any way attempting to redraw those boundaries. On the contrary, such an
approach insists on the need to maintain the methodology of a discipline even while
bringing one to bear on another. It asks scholars to apply what they know about one
discipline to the subject matter of another, so that for example the sociology of law
is an interdisciplinary study of law (as a discipline with its own epistemology and
history) applying sociological methods and asking sociological questions. This is
often a most valuable exercise, but note that far from undermining the disciplinary
paradigm, it entrenches it. One juxtaposes A to B as two distinct bodies of knowledge
(...).
Transdisciplinarity creates new objects of study by examining the themes or aspects
which different disciplines have in common and therefore assume without
interrogation. Transdisciplinarity is to disciplines as metaphysics is to physics;
transdisciplinarity is to disciplines as factors are to numbers. One therefore extracts
new themes or issues to pursue and examines their operation or treatment across
rather than between disciplines. In this sense, Focault is the intellectual paradigm of
transdisciplinary studies: in works such as The Archaeology of knowledge, he
searches for the revealing commonalties between such widely disparate disciplines as
economics, linguistics, and biology, finding in their approaches similar patterns of
analysis and change (. .).

The disciplines therefore are in one sense the way of accessing a new theme of study;
but in another sense, their treatment or ignorance of that theme is itself the issue.
Transdisciplinarity takes disciplines as objects of study in a way in which
interdisciplinarity cannot.
Transdisciplinarity examines a particular site or sites of interest without a particular
disciplinary strategy in mind. It is the site as observed and not the intellectual tradition
of the observer which determines the approach (, ).
Areas such as the city, or drugs, provide places of conjunction between such a
variety of disciplinary issues that no disciplinary or interdisciplinary framework can
do it justice. It is only by treating every discipline as relevant but never a hegemonic
structure that an understanding of the meaning of that site can really be developed
(...).
Transdisciplinarity treats different disciplines as verbs rather than nouns,
The treatment of disciplines - the use of the word and - as implying a mutual
constitution of subjects rather than a conjunction of objects, is what marks out the
territory of the transdisciplinarity.
Change comes from thought, and thought comes from the imagination (. .). Brain is a
web of connections developed, entrenched, and enriched over a lifetime of
experience. By multiplying the ways in which ideas are expressed, we multiply the
web of connections in our thinking, and therefore multiply both our ability to
communicate and the ability of the listener to build on those ideas out of their own
experiences and knowledges (. .).
There is something enormously revealing about the very connections which a society
has chosen not to focus on. The sideways glimpse, the unspoken assumption, tells one
an enormous amount about the nature and the structure of a society or an issue. By
focusing on the kind of connections which have not been considered before (. .) one
finds a great deal of surprising material.
Transdisciplinarity

is the meeting point of people and mind

It is precisely by applying a variety of different perspectives to a particular site or

issue, and through critiquing the approach taken by traditional disciplines in relation
to that site, that one is engaged in transdisciplinary work. Further, the capacity of
transdisciplinary studies to multiply our ways of knowing, and to connect reason to
emotion, ethics to politics, and knowledge to aesthetics, makes it both productive of
new ways of thinking about entrenched social problems, and communicative to a
broad range of social stakeholders. The pedagogic appeal and the intellectual
innovation offered by ransdisciplinary work is particularly important in addressing
otherwise intractable social issues.
The transdisciplinary work (. .) emphasised that understanding comes not just from
words but from images (. .). These emphasise that there is something intellectual
beyond words, something to be understood which cannot be captured by traditional

disciplinary methodologies, and through which we can begin to see that a way of
seeing or an aesthetic, and a way of thinking or an epistemology, are in fact mutually
constitutive (. . .). By bringing together such a range of approaches, and using such a
resolutely interactive and imaginative process, I believe that transdisciplinary studies
offers a way forward, which established disciplines, cannot provide (. .).
It is only by multiplying insights in relation to a specific site of interaction (. .), and
focusing on the themes which emerge in common out of a number of different
disciplines, that we can begin to appreciate why [a] problem seems so difficult to
resolve (. .).
The ideas of site specific analyses; disciplines as engaged in the mutual constitution
of and not merely the objective consideration of the problem; the search for buried
and shared themes amongst disciplines; a focus in particular on discourse and
semiotics as the way in which meaning in a culture is not just imparted but actively
circulated, shared, communicated, and changed along the way; all suggest that it is
only by trascending disciplines that we can begin to understand these problems, and
then begin to communicate our understanding to a wider community.

INNOVATIVE

FORMS OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY

COOPERATION

from Sustainability: a cross-disciplinary concept for social

transformations by E. Becker, T. Jahn, I. Stiess, P. Wehling
(Institute for Social-Ecological Research). Report on the results
of the first phase of the MOST-Project: Towards Sustainable
Development Paradigms and Policies *

Existing models of cross-disciplinary cooperation are often biased towards

hierarchical organization (. .). Here, a single (usually natural scientific) discipline is
enthroned as key discipline while others are instrumentalized as auxiliary disciplines
for certain well-defined questions. This model hardly seems suitable for the study of
the multi-layered complexity of sustainability issues (_ .).
In order to strucutre the debate about cross disciplinary cooperation, the following
section disctinguishes three basic models. All of them are appropriate for cross
disciplinary research (. .). However, different implications emerge from these models
of cooperation (. .).
The first model can be referred to as goal-oriented multi-disciplinarity.
This type of
research examines the possibilities of achieving a given objective, for instance a
reduction in car exhaust fumes, with the help of various disciplines. Generally
speaking, the objectives here are specified and fixed in advance by policy makers; the
individual disciplines can adhere almost entirely to their traditional methods, theories
and approaches. Within the framework of such research there is only a small impetus
towards interaction between disciplines. A synthesis, if undertaken at all, only
refers to the level of results. It is usually done via the policy makers, as clients, and
often involves only a mere adding together of results from the different disciplines. To
stick with the trafIic example: taking the technical options as the point of departure,
economic, legal and possibly behaviour-oriented measures are put forward without
explicit consideration of the interaction of such options and their perhaps
contradictory effects.
(. .) One of the major limitations of this model lies in the fact that, whether implicitly
or explicitly, it works with certain notions of the importance and ranking of the
various disciplines: economics is usually assumed to be more important than
psychology, technology more important than politics, etc. (_ .).
A second form of cross-disciplinary cooperation can be addressed in terms of
problem-oriented
interdisciplinarity.
Here too, socially relevant problems or
solutions are at the center of proceedings; the definition of problems, however, is tied
more closely to a process of negotiation between non-scientific actors and the
scientists involved. In this way, the different disciplines agree, at least roughly, on a
common description of the problems under review; they then proceed to process
certain aspects of the whole problem on a relatively independent basis and, for the
most part, using their customary disciplinary theories and methods. The result,
however, are viewed in the context of results from other disciplines, thus becoming
subject to relativization and modification. Thus an interdisciplinary exchange takes
place, albeit on the level of findings rather than that of theories and methods. The

concept of sustainability provides in this case a general framework for the definition
of socio-ecological problems and a line for their transformation into scientific
questions. This model can prove effective for many issues; indeed, it does offer a
greater scope for dealing with sustainability issues since it makes partial allowance for
their complex and multi-dimensional character. And yet this model does not produce
enough in the way of impulses and stimuli for self-reflexive changes to the
disciplines, and for a review of the range of their theories and methods with regard to
the problems raised by sustainability.
Finally, self-reflexive transdisciplinarity offers a third model of cross-disciplinary
cooperation. It begins with explicitly recognizing that the issues of sustainability
extend beyond the traditional subject matter of the respective disciplines and, as such,
constitue a transdisciplinary field (. .). As a consequence of this acknowledgement,
the conceptual and methodological limitations, which are tied to each disciplinary
perspective, are critically examined in the light of these issues. Thus, in contrast to the
establishment of environmental oriented sub-disciplines at the margins of existing
disciplines, self-reflexive transdisciplinarity promotes theoretical, conceptual and
methodological reorientations with respect to core concepts of the various social
sciences disciplines (. ).
However it is important to emphasize that the processing of sustainability issues
within this transdisciplinary field requires not only self-reflexive shifts within the
various disciplines, but also the improvement of cross-disciplinary cooperation by an
integrative conceptual framework and organizational structures for cooperation. The
role of such a theoretical frameworkconsists mainly of offering a flexible, analytic
model for the cooperation. This role should not be underestimated since there is
evidence that even multi- or interdisciplinary cooperation is likely to fail in the
absence of an integrating conceptual framework (. .). Nevertheless, the reference to a
theoretical framework is not intended as a rigid and highly general meta-theory, but
rather as a flexible, problem-oriented framework concept, that itself has to be open to
self-reflection to the highest degree.
It should be emphasized that in this context theoretical framework does not mean
unifying framework. Thus, the conflict between a unifying framework and the
plurality of theoretical and methodological approaches need not necessarily arise. On
the contrary, a theoretical framework can even promote and strengthen
methodological pluralism, by structuring a wide range of new questions and
suggesting and stimulating new methodological and theoretical access (. ).

Bibliography on Transdisciplinarity

PART I:

PUBLICATIONS
FROM PREVIOUS CONFERENCES
ADDRESSING TRANS- AND INTER-DISCIPLINARY
PERTINENT TO ROYAUMONT
MEETING

OECD-Sponsored

ISSUES

Conferences

Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities,

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 1972.

Paris:

Levin, L. and Lind, I. (Eds.) Inter-Disciplinarity Revisited: Re-Assessing the Concept

in the Light of Institutional Experience. Stockholm: OECD, Swedish National Board
of Universities and Colleges, Linkoping University, 1985,

UNESCO-Sponsored

Conferences

Hanisch, T. and W. Vollman (Eds.). Interdisciplinarity in Higher Education. Bucharest.

Romania: European Centre for Higher Education, UNESCO-CEPES, 1983. Available
on micotiche and in hard copy through ERIC database (Educational Resources
Information Center): fiche # ED 249 864.
Proceedings of World Congress of Transdisciplinarity of the Centre International de
Recherches et Etudes Transdisciplinaires (CIRET). Proceedings from 1994 meeting in
Portugal forthcoming from Hugin Editores Ida (Lisbon). Hard copy available also in
Rencontres Transdisciplinares: Bulletin Interactif du CIRET. For electronic versions
and forthcoming bibliography of transdisciplinary literature, see CIRET Website
(http://perso.club-/internet.fr/nicol/ciret/)

Conferences sponsored by International Association for the Study of

Interdisciplinary
Research (INTERSTUDY)
Barth, R.T. and R. Steck (eds.) Interdisciplinary Research Groups: Their Management
and Organization. Vancouver, B.C. International Research Group on Interdisciplinary
Programs (IRGIP), 1979.
Epton, S.R., R.L. Payne, and A.W. Pearson (Eds.)
Research. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1983.

Managing Interdisciplinary

Mar, B.W., W.T. Newell and B.O. Saxberg (Eds.) Managing High Technology:
An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1985.
Birnbaum, P.H., F.A. Rossini, & D. Baldwin (Eds.) International Research
Management: Studies in Interdisciplinary Methods. NY: Oxford University Press,
1990.

PART II:

PUBLISHED

REPORTS

Reports Based on Institution-Wide

Studies, Symposia, & Workshops

Ohio State University Task Force for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate
Education. Report on Recommendations for Fostering Interdisciplinary Research and
Graduate Education. Columbus, Ohio. 19 April 199 1.
Report of the Commission on Interdisciplinary
State University, 1993.

Studies. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne

Between Disciplines: A Report on the UBC Joint Facilities Symposium on

Interdisciplinarity. University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.
August 1993.
Background Material and Summary Report for a Workshop on the Management of
Interdisciplinary Research. 9-10 July 1974. Prepared by the University of Southern
California.

Reports Emanating from Studies and Task Forces Published by National

Academy Press in the United States
Interdisciplinary Research: Promoting Collaboration between the Life Sciences and
Medicine and the Physical Sciences and Engineering. Washington, D.C.: National
Academy Press, 1990.
Sproull, R. and H. Hall. Multidisciplinary Research and Education Programs in
Washington, D.C. : Government UniversityUniversities: Making Them Work.
Industry Research Round Table, National Academy Press, 1987.
Bioengineering Systems Research in the United States: An Overview. Washington,
D.C.: National Academy Press, 1987.

PART III:,

ADDITIONAL
ROYAUMONT

REFERENCES OF INTEREST
PARTICIPANTS

TO

Chubin, D.E., et al. Interdisciplinary Analysis and Research: Theory and Practice of
Problem-Foi;used Research and Development. Mount Airy, Md: Lomond. 1986. An
anthology of essays with emphasis on problem-focused research.
Dahlberg, K. and J. Bennett (Eds.) Natural Resources and People: Conceptual Issues
in Interdisciplinary Research. Boulder, CO: Western Press, 1986.
Russell, M.G., J.M. Barnes, and J.R. Cornwell (Eds.) Enabling Interdisciplinary
Research: Perspectives from Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics. St. Paul:
Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Minnesota, 1982. Miscellaneous
Publication No. 19.

PART IV:

BOOKS

Bayerl, Elizabeth. (1977) Interdisciplinary

Metuchen, N. J. : Scarecrow Press.
Bechtel, W., ed. (1986) Integrating
Nij hoof.

studies in the humanities: A directory.

scientific

disciplines.

Dordrecht:

Martinus

Chubin, Daryl E., Alan L. Porter, Frederick A. Rossini, and Terry Connolly, eds.
(1986) Interdisciplinary analysis and research: Theory and practice of problemfocussed research and development. Mt. Airy: Lomond.
Dill, Stephen H., ed. (1982) Integrated studies, challenged to the college curriculum.
Washington, D.C.: University Press of America.
Epton, S. R., R. L. Payne, and A. W. Pearson, eds. (1983) Managing interdisciplinary
research. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Klein, Julie Thompson. (1990) Interdisciplinarity:
Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

History, theory, and practice.

Kline, Stephen Jay. (I 995) Conceptual foundations for multidisciplinary

Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kockelmans, Joseph, ed. (1979) Interdisciplinarity
Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press,

thinking.

and higher education. University

Levin, Lennart and Ingemar Lind, eds. (1985) Inter-disciplinarity revisited: Reassessing the concept in the light of institutional experience. Stockholm: Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development, Swedish National Board of Universities
and Colleges, Linkoeping University.
Messer-Davidow, Ellen, David R. Shumway, & David J. Sylvan, eds. (1993)
Knowledges:
Historical
and critical studies in disciplinarity.
Knowledge,
disciplinarity and beyond. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Peacock, A., ed. (1985) Reductionism in academic disciplines. Guildford, SRHE and
NFER-Nelson. Skinner, Quentin, ed. (1985) The return of the grand theory in the
human sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sosnoski, James, (1995) Modern skeletons in postmodern closets: A cultural studies
alternative. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
While, Alvin, ed. (198 1) Interdisciplinary teaching. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. New
Directions for Teaching and Learning Series, No. 8.

PART V:

PAPERS

Scholarly disciplines: Breaking out. New York Times 25 April 1986, A18-19.
Allan, Ann. A method for determining interdisciplinary
activities within a
university. Library research 2: 1 (1980/8 1): 83-94.
Bahm, Archie. Interdisciplinology:
and system 2: 1 (1980): 29-35.

The science of interdisciplinary research. Nature

Batter, Henry H. Barriers against Interdisciplinarity: Implications for Studies of

Science, Technology, and Society (STS). Science, Technology, and Human Values
15:l(winter 1990): 105-l 19.
Beam, Robert D. Fragmentation of knowledge: An obstacle to its full utilization.
The optimum utilization of knowledge. ed. Kenneth Boulding and Lawrence Senesh.
Boulder: Westview, 1983: 160- 174.
Cluck, Nancy Anne. Reflections on the interdisciplinary
humanities. Liberal education 66: 1 (1980): 67-77.

approaches to the

Darvas, Gyorgy & Agnes Haraszthy, Some New Aspects of Interdisciplinary

Organization of Research Teams: On the Empirical Basis of an International Study of
Sociology of Science, Second Report Science of Science 1:3 (1980): 263-267.
Dorn, Harold. The dialectics of interdisciplinarity.

Humanities 8:2 (1987): 30-33.

Frank, A. and J. Schulert. Interdisciplinary learning as social learning and general

education. European journal of education 27: 3 : 223 -23 8.
Frank, Roberta. Interdisciplinary: The first half-century. Words. ed. E. G. Stanley
& T. F. Hoad. Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1988: 91-101.
Gelwick, Richard. Truly interdisciplinary
Soundings 66:4 (1983): 422-436.

study and commitment

in relativism.

Giroux, Henry, David Shumway, Paul Smith, & James Sosnoski, The need for
cultural studies: Resisting intellectuals and oppositional public spheres. Dalhousie
Review 64( 1985): 472-486.
Gozzer, Giovanni. Interdisciplinarity: A concept still unclear. Prospects: Quarterly
review of education 12:3 (1982): 281-292.
Klein, Julie Thompson, The dialiectic and rhetoric of
interdisciplinarity. Issues in integrative studies. 2 (1983): 35-74.

disciplinarity

and

Klein, Julie Thompson, The evolution of a body of knowledge: Interdisciplinary

problem-focussed research. Knowledge: Creation, diffusion, utilization. 7:2 (1985):
117-142.

Kocklemans, Joseph, Interdisciplinarity and the university:

reality. Issues in integrative studies. 4 (1986). l- 16.

The dream and the

Kroker, Arthur, Migration across the disciplines. Journal of Canadian studies. 15

(Fall 1980): 3-10.
LePair, C. Switching between academic disciplines
Netherlands. Scientometrics. 2 (May 1980): 177- 19 1,

in universities

Messmer, Michael W. The Vogue of the Interdisciplinary

(Fall 1978): 467-478.

Centennial Review 22:4

Miller, Raymond, Varieties of interdisciplinary

Issues in integrative studies, 1 (1982): l-37.

in the

approaches in the social sciences.

Mucklow, Neale H. Grounds for grouping the disciplines. Journal of philosophy of

education. 14:2 (1980): 226-237.
Murray, Thomas, Confessions of an unconscious interdisciplinarian.
integrative studies. 4 (1986): 57-70.
Shin, Un-chol. The structure of interdisciplinary
Issues in integrative studies. 4 (1986): 93-104.

Issues in

knowledge: A Polanyian view.

Sinaceur, Mohammed-Allal.
What is Interdisciplinarity?
Science Journal 29:4 (1977): 571-579.

Inter- national Social

Squires, G. Interdisciplinarity in higher education in the United Kingdom. European

journal of education 27:3 : 20 1- 10.
Winkler, Karen. Interdisciplinary research: How big a challenge to traditional
fields? Chronicle of higher education. 7 October, 1987: Al, 14-l 5.

Note

Transdisciplinarity is a new concept. Therefore as of today it is extremely

difficult to encounter titles on this issue. An alternative way to explore the
production worldwide is to proceed with caution and to refer to the notion of
Interdisciplinarity. Parts I to III of this bibliography were prepared by Prof.
Julie Thompson Klein for the Symposium in Royaumont. Parts IV and V are
based on the one compiled by Dr. Bruce Janz, Assistant Professor of
Philosophy, Augustana University College, for the use of the Centre for
Interdisciplinary Research in the Liberal Arts (CIRLA). Out of the hundreds
of books on particular interdisciplinary research programs, or on combinations
of particular disciplines, this bibliography focuses on works that reflect on the
meta-question of doing interdisciplinary research or teaching.

List of Participants

List of Participants

Prof. Upendra BAXI

School of Law
The University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Prof. Solomon R. BENATAR

Department of Medicine
University of Cape Town
Observatory
7925, Cape Town
South Africa

Prof. Ellis B. COWLING

College of Forest Resources
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC
27695 U.S.A.

Prof. William S. FYFE

The University of Western Ontario
Department of Earth Sciences
Biological & Geological Building
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5B7

Prof. Norbert GILMORE

Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law
McGill University
3690 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

Dr. Tom WARN

Dept. Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
McGill University
3 53 8 Hutchison
Montreal PQ
Canada H2X 2H2

Prof. Julie THOMPSON

111 Linden Crescent
Ypsilanti, Michigan
48 197-4703 U.S.A.

KLEIN

Prof. Sheldon KRIMSKY

Department of Urban Studies
Tufts University
Medford, MA
02155 U.S.A.

Prof. John M. LAST

Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology
University of Ottawa
45 1 Smyth Road
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada KlH 8M5

Prof. Roderick MACDONALD

President, Law Commission of Canada
473 Albert Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada Kl A OH8

Dr, Desmond MANDERSON

Faculty of Law
Macquarie University
New South Wales 20 19
Australia

Prof. Eleonora MASINI

Faculty of Social Sciences
Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
via Bertolari, 23
00 197 Roma
Italy

Prof. Gavan MCDONNEL

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
School of Science and Technology Studies
University of New South Wales
38 Park Rd, Bowral, NSW 2576
Sydney, Australia

Prof. Anthony J. MCMICHAEL

Department of Epidemiology and Population Health
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London WC 1E 7HT
United Kingdom

Prof. Robert Y. MCMURTRY

Dean of Medicine
Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry
Health Science Centre
The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5C 1

Prof. William NEWELL

School of Interdisciplinary
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio
45056 U.S.A.

Studies

Prof. David J. RAPPORT

Faculty of Environmental Science
University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario
Canada Nl G 2W 1

Prof. Andrew P. SAGE

Founding Dean Emeritus and First American Bank Professor
School of Information Technology and Engineering
George Mason University
Fairfax Station, VA
22030-3333 U.S.A.

Prof. Margaret A. SOMMERVILLE

Center for Medicine, Ethics and Law
McGill University
3690 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3 A lW9

Prof. Katherine YOUNG

Faculty of Religious Studies
McGill University
3 520 University Street
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3 A 2A7

Dr. Jacqueline RUSSEL

Dept. of Geography
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia 0200

UNESCO Secretariat

Mr. Yersu KIM, Director

Division of Philosophy and Ethics

Ms. Hillary S. WIESNER

Division of Philosophy and Ethics

Mr. Massimiliano LATTANZI

Division of Philosophy and Ethics

Mr. Luca ZARRI (Intern)

Division of Philosophy and Ethics

Ms. C. Von FURSTENBERG

Management of Social Transformation

Mr, F. EDER, Director

Division of Earth Sciences