Field stories
Transdisciplinary research journeys are often pretty complicated. They depend on maintaining relationships between stakeholders with distinct and sometimes conflicting interests, navigating entrenched world-views, and dealing with unexpected situations. Here you can explore how others are actively engaging in transdisciplinary research and how they went about their journeys. Make sure to check this page regularly for new stories.
Artists and activists encourage academics to imaginatively empathize with the ocean
In this field story, we share how scientists, artists, and activists creatively rewrote parts of a UN ocean treaty from the perspective of the ocean itself, showing that giving more-than-human interests a voice is possible, and what it takes to collaborate across genuinely different disciplinary "languages."
Science and art join forces to shed light on the dark side of green energy
In this field story, we share how researchers used art and storytelling instead of standard academic output to surface the human and environmental costs of critical mineral mining behind the green energy transition, and grapple honestly with how hard true decolonial collaboration actually is.
Engineering with Ecosystem Engineers: How industrial design and ecologists can synergistically restore threatened nature
In this field story, we share how ecologists and industrial designers/engineers combined their different fields to co-create 3D-printed mussel reef structures neither discipline could have designed alone.
Art as Method, Science as Practice
In this field story, we share insights from the Art & Science Session at UU Transdisciplinarity Day (June 4, 2026)
Students and policy makers in one classroom - learning together
In this field story we highlight the 'Mixed Classroom', an educational innovation developed by the Urban Futures Studio in which students from different disciplines and policy makers are part of one classroom where they learn from and with each other.
'Transdisciplinary research is the future of science'
In this field story, we share the experiences of Arthur Lutz (UU), Sanita Dhaubanjar (UU/ICIMOD), Wouter Smolenaars (WUR) and Muhammad Khalid Jamil (WUR/PARC) about the transdisciplinary research collaborative SustaIndus.
‘The transdisciplinary character of this project makes it less suitable for existing financing schemes’
In this field story, we share the experiences of Sanne Akerboom and Michelle Prins (Natuur&Milieu) about the transdisciplinary research collaborative called the Sustainable Industry Lab.
‘Transdisciplinary research requires commitment’
In this field story, we share the experiences of a transdisciplinary research collaborative called the Datawerkplaats.