Transdisciplinary Research Design Guide

A quick story – 
Before I started my business, I did a research project interviewing bilingual professors about their faculty experience. I stressed about these conversations. And while it was fun once we got talking, I found that I didn’t like being on the interviewer side of the table. I wanted to metaphorically sit side-by-side, to design solutions together and see what happened. This frustration sparked my curiosity about action research / transdisciplinary research and helped me toward my current work where I get to partner with education practitioners and leaders!

That’s one reason I’m excited to share a brand new resource, Designing Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide. The materials were developed and written by a group of transdisciplinary leaders and practitioners from 11 countries!  I was lucky to play a small part as graphic designer for the publication and complimentary materials.

3 Ideas that Resonated with Me:

• Inclusive Process: “A transdisciplinary research process….includes relevant societal actors and scientific disciplines from the outset of a project. As a collaborative group, they jointly analyze the problems, discuss what could be more desirable futures, define concrete goals, and cooperate on strategies and actions.” (p. 63)

• Training Adults: “Because of their pre-existing knowledge, adult learners are influenced more than taught” (p. 42)

• Leadership: “The most effective TD [transdisciplinary] leaders can navigate fluidly across the leadership spectrum” from positional leadership with assumed authority to distribute leadership with assumed responsibility. (p. 57)

From a comms perspective, my favorite visual choice is our color palette. We needed 10 different colors to color code different sections and make it easier to navigate this robust resource. I used Adobe Color’s accessibility tools to refine the palette for contrast and color blind-friendliness.