- Posted on 24 Oct 2025
- 3-minute read
We live and work in a world filled with diverse and complex challenges. Navigating them requires new, collaborative and innovative methods-such as transdisciplinarity.
Mainstream or more ‘traditional’ and academic ways of problem solving like multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are often insufficient for these types of challenges. Transdisciplinarity integrates knowledge and theory from other approaches but extends further, incorporating diverse expertise and perspectives, including those from First Nations, industry and the wider community.
With the ability to generate new paths that transcend historic and traditional ways-how can we address more industry, community, society-wide or unknown future challenges, harnessing the powerful benefits of transdisciplinarity, without having a complete picture of its use, evolution and impact?
Project overview
This research project aimed to capture and help deepen understanding of the many ways transdisciplinarity (TD) has been put into practice globally, providing for the first time, an analysis of its current and historical use. Transdisciplinary methodologies are employed in education, professional settings, and research, however, despite their significant role in helping both the public and private sectors address challenges, there has never been a complete, comprehensive understanding or timeline of its implementation, evolution and impact.
A team of researchers with different disciplinary backgrounds collaborated to perform a systematic review of literature that contained transdisciplinary methods, frameworks, and practices-unearthing a potential 26,000+ articles. The team then screened these against specific inclusion criteria and extracted relevant information to create an extensive, searchable resource.
Our research is capturing and showcasing the remarkable power of transdisciplinarity to illuminate new pathways for solving the world’s most complex of challenges.
Our impact
Researchers at UTS’s Transdisciplinary School not only apply TD methodologies in their work—they’ve also passionately driven a project that paints the picture of TD’s global impact. This pioneering initiative offers a comprehensive overview that deepens understanding and expands the reach of transdisciplinarity worldwide by:
(1) Impacting Knowledge - Collating a complete in-depth world-wide picture of anything that has ever been created on TD including research papers, books, articles, clinical findings and more.
(2) Impacting Education and Research - Serving as the cornerstone for UTS’ Transdisciplinary School and TD Research area providing a continued teaching and research methodology resource.
(3) Impacting Society and Community - Producing a range of reports and other information summarising the extensive findings, showcasing global, and industry specific information across research, clinical, education and professional contexts.
(4) Impacting Future Use - Utilising the findings of the systematic review to create a world-first, searchable, global TD database of over 3000+ articles, aiding in the navigation of current and future challenges.
Work with us
We deliver a wide range of research projects for public and private sector partners seeking research expertise and support in overcoming their complex challenges using our unique transdisciplinary (TD) methodology.
To get involved in this research project or to find out how TD Research can help you and your organisation, please email TDResearch@uts.edu.au.
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Society’s inability to discuss and navigate complex and contested topics contributes to Australia’s underperformance on the nation’s biggest issues.
Committed to continually evolving the media landscape in new and vibrant ways, the ABC partnered with UTS, engaging students from their award-winning Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation degree (BCII), to investigate new ways of targeting and increasing engagement with young people across Australia.
Industries and organisations are facing escalating environmental and social challenges—from climate change to governance issues and public distrust in the Australian public and private sectors.
It’s the year 2050. A patient has just left his doctor’s office clutching a prescription. The treatment? Attendance at hologram-based Pink Floyd concert and a restorative gardening activity, delivered through something called the SBS Third Space Program.