How can Utrecht University 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’s world? “Academics need partners who stand to benefit from their research,” writes Utrecht University 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 University researchers. As part of CHARM-EU, a new, cutting-edge alliance between five European universities, the researchers looked at how the partner universities—the University of Barcelona, Trinity College Dublin, Utrecht University, the University of Montpellier and Eötvös Loránd University  Budapest—are 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—research that integrates knowledge across academic disciplines and with non-academic stakeholders to address societal challenges.

“We 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—the movement to make scientific research and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society, amateur or professional,” 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. “This is where there could be a concrete role for Utrecht University,” says Triyanti. “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”.

Concretely, say the researchers, this could be through exploring mechanisms to increase inclusiveness, engaging the unusual suspects, and diversifying geographical representation and societal stakeholders. “It 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,” says Triyanti.