19 Jul 2016|Gurgaon (Manesar) | Amity University Gurgaon
Amity School of Liberal Arts organized Workshop on Transdisciplinarity in Research and Teaching by Prof. Ulrike Zeshan, University of Central Lancashire, UK.
Amity School of Liberal Arts, Amity University Gurgaon organized Workshop on Transdisciplinarity in Research and Teaching on 19th July 2016 by Prof. Ulrike Zeshan from the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Prof. Ulrike Zeshan is director of the International Institute for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies, and has worked in the areas of theoretical and applied linguistics, literacy education, and international development.
The Theme of the workshop was multidisciplinary approaches are about combining several disciplines. Transdisciplinarity goes a step further and priorities issues instead of disciplines, often issues of a complex nature (so-called “wicked problems”). In the process, disciplinary affiliations become largely irrelevant or even a hindrance. For instance, ecological sustainability represents a dense network of interrelated aspects, and in order to address the problem, it is not useful to look through limited disciplinary lenses.
A new wave of transdisciplinarity is now in full swing in civil society in many countries, for example in the form of so-called “change labs” and other multi-stakeholder partnerships. Universities feel the need to participate in these developments, but genuine transdisciplinarity in either teaching or research is still rare in the Higher Education sector, presenting a considerable challenge to academia.
Faculties from all the institutes experienced two key components of transdisciplinary work: the logic of cross-sectoral partnership projects, and the design of transdisciplinary taught programmes.