Decision-making does not only rely on scientific knowledge
GCI-tes attended a Transdisciplinary Seminar by Visiting Professor Roderick Lawrence.
Transdisciplinary contributions recognise the complexity of these challenges, and the need to understand the specific cultural, geographical and political context in which they exist. The added value of all transdisciplinary contributions is their potential to promote shared understanding among a wide range of stakeholders in society and agreement among them about how to respond to these challenges.
Earlier this year the Research Office hosted Visiting Scholar Professor Roderick Lawrence who gave a talk on “Transdisciplinary Diversity and Societal Challenges” at Wits University. Considering that GCI is pursuing a transdisciplinary agenda, GCI members were excited to hear what the Prof had to say. Below is a brief summary of some of the points he mentioned.
The seminar discussed the diversity of transdisciplinary research and practice applied in recent years to address major challenges including climate change, non-communicable diseases and urbanisation in a rapidly changing world.
The seminar kicked off with Professor Lawrence discussing the four kinds of rational knowledge: scientific, instrumental, ethical and aesthetic.
He further went on to discuss disciplinary knowledge, in particular that scientific knowledge is heavily grounded in disciplinary knowledge. According to Prof Lawrence, while disciplinary knowledge has made incredible inroads in terms of advancements and helping us understand problems, disciplinary knowledge is also fragmented and segmented.
“There is no one protocol for interdisciplinary research,” said Prof Lawrence. He also made reference to Jean Piaget’s three modes of integration, namely: Exchange and integration of information; Exchange and integration of concepts and methods; and Creation of new concepts and knowledge. Continuing with reference to Piaget, he discussed structuralist contribution that speaks about moving from simple juxtaposition of different disciplines in a multidisciplinary research agenda to a higher level of understanding by the creation of synergies exchange between different disciplines.
With regard to transdisciplinarity, Prof Lawrence highlighted that contextual understanding is a crucial component. There is a second interpretation of transdisciplinarity which is anchored in systems thinking i.e. to think in terms of systems rather than conventional approaches to address problems in isolation. According to Prof Lawrence this interpretation is gaining ground in the literature.
Considering transdisciplinarity involves a variety of actors, Prof Lawrence went on to discuss key points pertaining to knowledge creation and communication. He mentions three platforms: Community associations, Citizen consultation spaces, and Local democratic processes. He also elaborated on the role of stakeholders, which includes NGOs, corporations, politicians etc.
In conclusion he mentioned the need for innovative contributions and quoted Albert Einstein, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”