An investigation into the challenges of transdisciplinary R&D : values, culture and the case of the BIOSSAM project

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The emerging classification of Sustainability-oriented Innovation Systems places an emphasis on thesocial elements of change, as well as the technological. However, sustainability-oriented problemsare too vast for one person or discipline to comprehend; thus people tend to want to collaborate,meaning they form teams. As a further extension to address sustainability-oriented problems, thereis an increasing emphasis on transdisciplinary research and development (R&D) efforts, whereby co-productiontransgresses boundaries, and science becomes visible before it becomes certain. Toreach the objectives of transdisciplinary R&D efforts will require two key concepts: the gathering ofinformation from experts, namely knowledge transfer; and making connections between them,namely knowledge integration. Nevertheless, challenges have been noted in terms of academictribes that impede teamwork, and, importantly, the lack of combined thought and action in R&D.This research, which is compiled as two journal articles, explored the collaboration, betweendisciplines, that has been described as the means of meeting the requirements of transdiscplinaryR&D to identify, structure, analyse and deal with specific problems in such a way that it can: graspthe complexity of problems; take into account the diversity of life-world and scientific perceptions ofproblems; link abstract and case-specific knowledge; and develop knowledge and practices thatpromote what is perceived to be the common good. However, the latter brings into question howvalues and culture influence collaboration and thus transdisciplinary R&D efforts. The first article setout to investigate, from a literature analysis, how the culture and values of individuals in atransdisciplinary R&D team, as well as those of the organisation, determine the potential success orfailure of the R&D effort. A conceptual framework is derived based on the theories of complexity, asit relates to knowledge management, learning within organisations, cognitive and behaviouralapproaches to culture and values, and communication. The framework also builds on previousresearch that has been conducted with respect to the management of transdisciplinary R&D. Thesecond article then utilises the introduced conceptual framework for an in-depth investigation of acase study in the bioenergy field. The R&D project, which spanned over three years in South Africa,required a transdisciplinary team of engineers and scientists of various fields to collaborate withstakeholders outside the R&D team. The case emphasises that the lack of disciplines to recognize,understand and incorporate values and culture into R&D practices will lead to project failure; pre-emptingand managing expectations of social change (often) far outweigh the necessity fortechnological change. A number of recommendations are thus made to improve R&D practices.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University