Hi Nidhi, no one tried to answer your question. Let's see ...

In the last 10 years I worked in transdisciplinary research projects in Germany (metall industry, agriculture, adaptation to climate change). For me it is a promising concept to make research more effective for society. However, the common approaches (theory, concepts) are somewhat naive and overlook interest and power of involved actors. I have a paper on research gate where I plea for more investigative (critical) transdisciplinary research approaches. It would be nice to get a comment from you about it.

What is you answer to your question?

Thanks Manuel for the opening comments.. appreciate it !!!

I do realize that my questions had many in-built queries and it was consciously tending towards provocation. The intention was to invite other perspectives and so I did not my pen my own impression. I worked extensively in inter and cross disciplinary projects/programs in natural and social sphere, even touching upon policy and institutional scape. While inter and cross disciplinary thoughts are making way in international development R &D agenda; the shift to transdisciplinary research is pretty new to many in many parts of the world. I too am optimistic about the concept and its theoretical underpinnings, more so as it clearly outlines the significance of stakeholders involvement at all levels, traversing beyond the conversational approach of science (or scientists) to society towards ‘science and society’ (co-creation)

I would keen to look into your paper and am sure it adds further to my understanding of the concept. My own effort, more specifically on land use systems is the contribution to: Christinck, Anja & Martina Padmanabhan eds. (2013): Cultivate Diversity! A Handbook on Transdisciplinary Approaches to Agrobiodiversity Research. Weikersheim: Margraf Publishers.

And a forthcoming piece

Nagabhatla, N., Padmanabhan, M., Kühle, P.,Vishnudas, S., Betz, L. and Niemeyer, B. 2014. LCLUC as an entry point for transdisciplinary research –reflections from an agriculture land use change study in South Asia. Journal of Environmental Management-LCLUC special issue by NASA LCLUC Program (DOI-10.1016/j.jenvman.2014.03.019)

Hello - just noticed your question. I've been investigating and publishing on this notion for a decade or so, and have just published an edited volume (journal paper forthcoming) on transdisciplinarity as both a reform movement (as Nicolescu contends) and an approach to sustainability science (as Brown, Harris and Russell (2010) have applied.

You may preview our volume and lead chapter at this url:  http://tinyurl.com/qj8q8o2 and we'll forward the journal paper link when it is out if you get in touch...We've noticed that European sustainability researchers (and others adopting, applying and evaluating research that is titled TD) have overlooked inclusion of Indigenous frameworks and epistemologies  while those in (post) colonial sites in Latin America, Australia, the US and Canada do include this concept and the holistic thinking that is inferred with human inter-connectedness to the Earth - particularly in sustainability science projects. See also attached PDF of a 2012 co-authored chapter on this topic.

Thank you for the note Richard. I appreciate you sharing the script; it is helpful to record diversified perspectives on transdisciplinarity. I acknowledge that your observation on different lens used by regional researchers may be somewhat reflective of the literature published in those territories, however most of TD concepts and theories are still quite conceptual and not factored in mainstream sustainability discourse. We are now beginning to see barriers and opportunities towards TD implementation from studies that claim to have used the framework. I would like to share the approach, we adopted:  simplified version available from publications listed below.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261132922_Multi-stakeholder_dialogue_on_land_use_Transdisciplinary_approaches_to_address_landscape_transformation_in_Kerala

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259645830_Developing_a_joint_understanding_of_agro_biodiversity_and_land-use_change

Happy to connect and to continue exchange on this very exciting topic

Book Multi-stakeholder dialogue on land use: Transdisciplinary ap...

Chapter Developing a joint understanding of agrobiodiversity and lan...

Thanks for the update and looking forward to reading these. I would note answers to my question on TD on this site which lists a couple of advanced European sustainability projects who have evaluative metrics, as well as some of the pertinent literature in that lead-off chapter from the edited volume.