Transdisciplinary institutionalization in higher education: a two-level analysis

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we focus on the institutionalization of transdisciplinarity (TD) in higher education institutions and how they institutionalize Transdisciplinarity (TD). As such, universities have engaged in different activities to enact TD policies that aim at incorporating TD in their research and teaching. We take the Methodology Center at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg as a case study. We analyze the institutionalization process of TD to shed light on the obstacles that TD faces to become a widespread policy and practice at universities. In adopting a neo-institutionalist approach in our research, we develop a two-level analysis that allow us to compare the formal characteristics given to TD policies with the actual TD practices taking place in universities. Our findings reveal that TD institutionalization at the Methodology Center is at a mid-level and that overall TD institutionalization is an iterative process, in which the two levels mutually can reinforce or hinder each other.

KEYWORDS:

• Transdisciplinarity
• higher education
• institutionalization
• interfaculty center
• policy
• practices
• Germany

Acknowledgements

The authors specially want to thank Ulli Vilsmaier for supporting the research and the Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany) for funding the research conducive to this article. The authors also want to thank Julie Thompson Klein for their comments on previous versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Bianca Vienni Baptista http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1282-4288

Silvia Rojas-Castro http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8836-8288

Notes

1 We understand a case study as defined by Gomm, Hammersley, and Foster (2000) and Yin (2014).

2 For more details on the reforms and organization of the Leuphana University see the website: http://www.leuphana.de/en/university.html

3 http://www.leuphana.de/zentren/methodenzentrum.html

4 Hereinafter we quote the minutes analyzed based on our own codification system, given their partially restricted character (available only for the members of the University). This codification reflects if the minute is from the Senate, its year and its chronological order (see Annex 1).

5 Here we follow the definition developed in organizational literature of legitimacy as ’a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’ (Suchman 1995, 574).

6 ‘Transdisziplinarität wird dabei verstanden als die Zusammenarbeit unterschiedliche Fachdisziplinen und Akteure aus der gesellschaftlichen Praxis mit dem Anspruch, gesellschaftliche Herausforderungen sowie Problemstellungen zu bearbeiten und zu lösen.‘

7 https://www.leuphana.de/lehre/entwicklung/lehrprofil/inter-und-transdisziplinaere-lehre/interdisziplinaer-oder-transdisziplinaer-lehren-und-lernen.html

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Program Kleinforschungsprojekt, period 2016–2017.