Inter- and transdisciplinary research - a catalyst for a professional-scientific education

The chapter proceeds from the assumption that tertiary education should enable students to engage in collaborations covering different fields of expertise and in adopting a comprehensive approach when dealing with problems that cannot be suitably addressed by a mono-perspective approach. Inter- and transdisciplinarity as a modus operandi in approaching complex questions and problems is, as a rule, seldom the primary topic of educational offerings. Rather, it is an add-on. And the same applies to a transformative approach. The key message of the chapter is that this add-on should be integrated on a state-of-the-art basis, and that this should happen by transferring learnings from the experiences in interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and transformative research to educational settings. In the first part of the chapter, the quality requirements for interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and transformative research are described, and it is summarized what is known about the challenges of such research and the conditions for such research to be successful. Based on this, conclusions for educational settings are drawn. These conclusions start by describing the quality requirements for educational settings in which an inter- or transdisciplinary approach is adopted. In subsequent steps, conclusions with regard to different dimensions of designing and planning educational offerings are explored. In drawing conclusions, the authors draw on their own experiences of more than two decades in designing inter- and transdisciplinary study programmes and in delivering courses. The purpose of the chapter is to provide hand-on guidance to educators that are envisaging to improve the inter- and transdisciplinarity of their educational offerings.