Exploring Transdisciplinary Education combining Arts & Sciences – Erasmus+

Exploring Transdisciplinary Education combining Arts & Sciences is a EUR+ project that aims to recalibrate 21^st century education in order to address the complex problems of current and future times.

The consortium is formed by seven European universities Erasmus University Rotterdam, TU Dublin, Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design, WdKA Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Roskilde University, Codarts Rotterdam and Zurich University of the Arts united by common interested in transdisciplinary education.

 Transdisciplinarity is a context and issue specific composition that is employing scientific knowledge (including inter, multi, cross-disciplinary knowledge), artistic knowledge and societal knowledge. This is in contrast with (disciplinary) approaches aimed at knowledge transfer. Transdisciplinary education is about knowledge creation

The main objective of the EUR+ project was to design innovative, transdisciplinary education methods in which the imaginative and the transferrable, the sensory and the non-sensory, co-inhabit, collaborate, and compose new perspectives and futures by using scientific knowledge, as well as visual and embodied experiences.

This project developed elements required to enable the inclusion of transdisciplinarity in regular curricula all over Europe trough different groups. More specifically, four groups were formed by teachers/researcher/students from the different institutes. Within each group always different institutes and societal partners were participating.

Group 1 developed their project around Transdisciplinary Education Methods to arrange the process of multi-stakeholder collaboration and to stimulate mutual understanding. Based on their practical and theoretical knowledge the group produced an edited volumed titled This is not a Gardening Book: The Cultivation of Transdisciplinary Practices (ISBN: 8-74152-732-6). The book brings together eight essays written by artists, scholars, and educators from a wide variety of disciplinary and institutional backgrounds. In addition to the essays, the book contains an AI-generated image layer and glossary entries written by students from the various institutions. The image layer is informed by keywords that are derived from the essays.

Group 2 developed their project over the creation of a stakeholder Code of Conduct necessary to ensured non-hierarchical educational and research collaborations. The result was a performance-lecture expressing the different perspectives over collaboration. In addition to the abstract exercise a working document was crafted based on the experiences encountered within RASL and social stakeholders specifically during the workshop RASL Transdisciplinary Summer Studio. The ten days workshop Moving shorelines and Floating Worlds: Re-imagining Tomorrow’s Water Climate through the Arts and Sciences was aimed to explore transdisciplinary collaboration with Societal partners around water. The document Transdisciplinary collaboration – Proposal for collaboration ethos – RASL and Social Partners is based upon the experience of involving stakeholders in suchlearning environments.

Group 3 used the approach of tuning as a conceptual approach. Tuning in both the formal, informal, and continuous work within the transdisciplinary space. By developing an online environment teachers and others can tune their approach to transdisciplinary teaching. The outcome is a multilayered and fluid online platform intended as a resource for tuning transdisciplinary education. Tuning Transdisciplinary Education contains edited interviews, documentation of various research events, a selection of transdisciplinary methodologies, resources, and an extensive index. The words on the website are meant to be a prompt, means of calibration and catalyst for thinking about each transdisciplinary teachingjourney.

Group 4 developed a transdisciplinary programme. The programme is formed by a series of modules for a total of 30 ects. The group developed the programme based upon the experience of participating teachers, experiences from two international pilot workshops and an open call. All the modules listed in the program have a general framework of students working on projects combining multiple knowledge.

This project is funded by Erasmus+