The tdAcademy is a research and community platform for transdisciplinarity. As a project, we conduct research on central topics of transdisciplinary research and strengthen the joint production of knowledge. With our website we support the direct exchange of researchers through new community offers and information on events and projects.
The tdAcademy pursues three objectives:
- First, developing and consolidating state of the art insights within the transdisciplinary research community (“Research”).
- Second, providing high quality capacity building opportunities for transdisciplinary researchers (“Enable”).
- Third, supporting and further developing the transdisciplinary research community by providing a space for exchange, reflection, collaboration, and new ideas (“Connect”).
The international community is actively involved in the project through a group of supporting partner institutions as well as a guest and fellow program.
tdAcademy Team
Nina Frölich
Karlsruhe Intitute of Technology (KIT)
Dr.
Michael Kreß-Ludwig
ISOE - Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung
Dr.
Regina Rhodius
Öko-Institut e.V.
Dr.
Jasmin Wiefek
Zentrum Technik und Gesellschaft - Technische Universität Berlin
Chantal Krumm
ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Dr.
Alexandra Lux
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Emilia Nagy
Center for Technology and Society (ZTG), Technische Universität Berlin
Prof. Dr. Dr.
Martina Schäfer
Center for Technology and Society (ZTG), Technische Universität Berlin
Prof. Dr.
Daniel Lang
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Dr.
Oskar Marg
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Dr.
Melanie Mbah
Öko-Institut e.V.
Lena Theiler
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Dr.
Nicola Schuldt-Baumgart
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Project Partners & Funding
The founding partners of tdAcademy are four institutions with a proven track record in transdisciplinary research:
- ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research
- Leuphana University Lüneburg,
- Center for Technology and Society (ZTG) at Technische Universität Berlin
- Oeko-Institut e.V.
The following institutions are involved in the second project phase of the tdAcademy (June 2023 to May 2025):
- ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
- KIT - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Center for Technology and Society (ZTG) at Technische Universität Berlin
- Oeko-Institut e.V.
The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the Strategy „Research for Sustainability" (FONA) as part of its Social-Ecological Research funding priority. The guest and fellowship program is funded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
tdAcademy lives through exchange within the community. Therefore, the group of supporting partners will closely involve other academic institutions within the German-speaking and international community to jointly conduct, promote, and shape transdisciplinary research. The group of supporting partners will be extended continuously. Two representatives from the group of supporting partners will become members of the steering group of the platform tdAcademy. In the first meeting of the supporting partners in March 2021, Dr. Christian Pohl (TdLab, ETH Zürich) and Prof. Dr. Simone Rödder (CliSAP, University Hamburg) were elected as members.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christine Ahrend
TU Berlin
Dr. Camilla Bausch
Ecologic Institut Europa
Prof. Dr. Birgit Blättel-Mink
Institut für Soziologie, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main
Prof. Dr. phil. Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Böschen
Human Technology Center (HumTec), RWTH Aachen
Tobias Buser
Global Alliance for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity - ITD Alliance
Dr. Dr. Guido Caniglia
Konrad-Lorenz-Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI)
Rico Defila
Programm Mensch-Gesellschaft-Umwelt, Universität Basel
Prof. Dr. Andreas Ernst
Universität Kassel
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Fischedick
Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie
seit April 2022 gewähltes Mitglied der tdAcademy-Steuerungsgruppe im Tandem mit Annika Rehm
Univ. Prof. Dr. Christoph Görg
Institut für Soziale Ökologie (SEC), Wien
Dr. Antonietta Di Guilio
Programm Mensch-Gesellschaft-Umwelt, Universität Basel
Prof. Dr. Matthias Groß
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ)
Prof. Dr. Armin Grunwald
Institut für Technikfolgenabschätzung und Systemanalyse (ITAS)
Dr. Willi Haas
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien
Prof. Dr. sc. agr. Katharina Helming
Leibniz-Zentrum für Agrarlandschaftsforschung (ZALF)
Dr. Sabine Hoffmann
Eawag
seit April 2022 gewähltes Mitglied der tdAcademy-Steuerungsgruppe
Prof. Dr. Daniela Jacob
Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS)
Thomas Korbun
Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW)
Dr. Kora Kristof
Vizepräsidentin Digitalisierung und Nachhaltigkeit, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Dr. Pius Krütli
TdLab, ETH Zürich
Prof. Dr. Sabine Maasen
Wissenschafts- und Innovationsforschung, Universität Hamburg
Prof. Dr. Patrizia Nanz
Bundesamt für die Sicherheit der nuklearen Entsorgung (BASE)
Prof. Dr. Jörg Niewöhner
Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Prof. Dr. Benjamin Nölting
Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (HNEE)
Dr. Steffi Ober
Zivilgesellschaftliche Plattform Forschungswende, NABU Deutschland
Prof. Dr. Martina Padmanabhan
Universität Passau
Theres Paulsen
Network for Transdisciplinary Research (td-net), Akademien der Wissenschaften Schweiz
Dr. Christian Erik Pohl
USYS TdLab, ETH Zürich
Prof. Dr. Michael Pregernig
Institut für Umweltsozialwissenschaften und Geographie, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Prof. Dr. Henrike Rau
Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen, LMU München
Prof. Dr. Ortwin Renn
Institut für transformative Nachhaltigkeitsforschung (IASS)
Prof. Dr. Simone Rödder
Institut für Soziologie, Universität Hamburg
Dr. Flurina Schneider
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Prof. Dr. Michael Stauffacher
TdLab, ETH Zürich
Birge Wolf
Universität Kassel
Prof. Dr. Sophia Becker
TU Berlin
Hon.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Bergmann
ISOE - Institute for Social-Ecological Research
Video: Christian Pohl on the tdAcademy
Christian Pohl, elected member of the tdAcademy Steering Committee, talks about his role and the importance of the tdAcademy group of Supporting Partners.
learn more
Video: Simone Rödder on the tdAcademy
Simone Rödder, elected member of the tdAcademy Steering Committee, talks about her role and the importance of the tdAcademy group of Supporting Partners.
learn more
tdAcademy strengthens the knowledge base, further development and networking in transdisciplinary research via a working mode that closely interlinks the modules "Research", "Enable" and "Connect" with their various activities.
The tdAcademy strengthens the knowledge base, advancement, and networking of transdisciplinary research through a working mode that interconnects the modules of "Researching," "Enabling," and "Connecting" with their respective activities.
During the first phase of the project (June 2020 - May 2023), the focus of the tdAcademy was on four topic lines that explore key questions of transdisciplinary research:
- The societal impacts of transdisciplinary research, building upon the insights from the predecessor project TransImpact.
- The scientific impacts of transdisciplinary research, which have been less explored to date.
- Dealing with contextual dependencies concerning the generalizability of context-specific findings and the implementation of transdisciplinary research in different cultural contexts.
- Exploring new formats for conducting transdisciplinary research or incorporating specific participatory concepts that have the potential to enrich transdisciplinary research.
During the second phase of the project (June 2023 - May 2025), the focus is on gaining a better understanding of the intersections between the topic lines in order to identify synergies and contradictions. At the same time, the substantive work within the topic lines will be continued.
