The tdAcademy will conclude its intensive research and networking work at the end of May 2025 after five years. The completion of the scientific work in the project team marks the end of an important phase - but the community of transdisciplinary researchers remains. The activities of the tdAcademy contributed significantly to the founding of the Gesellschaft für transdisziplinäre und partizipative Forschung e.V. (GTPF) in 2023. Two years after its foundation, researchers from transdisciplinary and participatory research are now working together in ten thematic working groups of the GTPF. They not only continue central research topics of the tdAcademy - such as methods and formats, effects in science and society and contextual conditions of transdisciplinary research - but also take up new issues, such as transdisciplinary didactics or participatory science communication.
The tdAcademy has made a significant contribution to the further development and visibility of transdisciplinary research (TDR). Methodologically, the tdAcademy made an important contribution to strengthening the social impact orientation of transdisciplinary research. It analysed the scientific quality of TDR, identified relevant context variables and structured the context-sensitive selection and adaptation of TDR formats. As a result, the tdAcademy has shaped a scientific culture that has become an integral part of the research landscape. Further scientific publications will continue to appear after the project is completed. However, in order to survive in a scientific system that continues to be strongly characterised by disciplines, transdisciplinary research must increasingly address the question of its own quality criteria, which are recognised as equivalent to the excellence criteria of disciplinary research. A well-founded understanding of quality would give new impetus to the discourse on the categorisation of transdisciplinary and participatory research in the science system. This quality debate is currently being conducted in many places and in different networks. The GTPF can play an important bridging role here.
With the support of its circle of partners - and the financial support of the TU Berlin - the tdAcademy was able to achieve a key milestone on the path to more attention, funding and recognition for research with society: With the co-founding of the GTPF and the preparatory activities, the tdAcademy made a significant contribution to the debate and efforts to institutionalise transdisciplinary and participatory research. Through national and international exchange, it strengthened the discourse on the strategic anchoring and consolidation of supportive institutional structures for TDR. Although the tdAcademy was also able to contribute to raising awareness of the concerns of these research approaches with its "Eckpunktepapier" published in 2023, important structural developments are still pending - for example in the form of recognition structures or specific career paths for early career researchers and beyond. This is where the GTPF can take on a central role in future as an advocacy organisation for transdisciplinary and participatory research.
The tdAcademy organised the first annual conference of the GTPF - and thus also celebrated the successful conclusion of the project. Under the motto ‘New horizons in transdisciplinary research’, around 130 participants came together in Frankfurt am Main on 2 and 3 April 2025. The event provided space for intensive dialogue and new impetus for transdisciplinary and participatory research practice. The feedback was consistently positive: the conference was experienced as lively, rich in content and forward-looking. Click here for the documentation with picture gallery and greeting from State Secretary Dr. Karl-Eugen Huthmacher.
The success of the tdAcademy would not have been possible without many years of preparatory work in research and networking for the tdF. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supported this development over many years as part of its funding programme for socio-ecological research. Projects such as tdPrax1 and tdPrax2, Evalunet and TransImpact from the social-ecological research funding programme laid the foundations: they strengthened the knowledge base, promoted the acquisition of skills and contributed significantly to the establishment of stable network structures in the community. This forward-looking and continuous funding practice ultimately also made the founding of the GTPF possible.
We are delighted that the community of transdisciplinary and participatory researchers has found a home in the GTPF - a place where it can continue to grow together, learn from each other and represent the interests of research together with society.