How can Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 become a transdisciplinary institution of the future?
With future generations facing unprecedented challenges due to climate change, resource depletion and mounting inequalities, structural transformations of society are urgently needed. In light of this, what is the essence of a university in today鈥檚 world? 鈥淎cademics need partners who stand to benefit from their research,鈥 writes Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 on its website. So how can academic institutions push research that seeks to collaborate across disciplines and with society to find solutions to the urgent challenges around us, while balancing this with more traditional monodisciplinary, excellence-driven research?
This is a question that has recently been investigated by a group of Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 researchers. As part of , a new, cutting-edge alliance between five European universities, the researchers looked at how the partner universities鈥攖he 木瓜福利影视 of Barcelona, Trinity College Dublin, Utrecht 木瓜福利影视, the 木瓜福利影视 of Montpellier and E枚tv枚s Lor谩nd 木瓜福利影视 Budapest鈥攁re fostering challenge-driven, co-produced research.
The researchers carried out interviews and focus group discussions to gather their insights on good practices in public engagement and transdisciplinary science. Public engagement describes the myriad of ways in which the activity and benefits of higher education and research can be shared with the public. Part of this is transdisciplinary research鈥攔esearch that integrates knowledge across academic disciplines and with non-academic stakeholders to address societal challenges.
鈥淲e find that structurally, most of the five universities have to some extent incorporated public engagement and transdisciplinary science as part of their broader Open Science Agenda鈥攖he movement to make scientific research and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional,鈥 says Annisa Triyanti, a researcher on the project.
Diversity and inclusion should be at the top of the agenda in strengthening public engagement and transdisciplinary science as part of the broader Open Science movement. This would help accelerate the effort to balance excellence-driven science with public engagement and transdisciplinary science
However, the report finds that many of the challenges link back to engaging young and marginalised groups of society in public engagement and transdisciplinary science. 鈥淭his is where there could be a concrete role for Utrecht 木瓜福利影视,鈥 says Triyanti. 鈥淒iversity and inclusion should be at the top of the agenda in strengthening public engagement and transdisciplinary science as part of the broader Open Science movement. This would help accelerate the effort to balance excellence-driven science with public engagement and transdisciplinary science鈥.
Concretely, say the researchers, this could be through exploring mechanisms to increase inclusiveness, engaging the unusual suspects, and diversifying geographical representation and societal stakeholders. 鈥淚t is also crucial to further explore contentious issues including addressing the issue of power asymmetry in the production and utilisation of knowledge for solving societal challenges,鈥 says Triyanti.