The world is facing increasing inequalities in a variety of domains, including the distribution of wealth, social justice, access to healthcare, educational opportunities, environmental conditions, and cultural representation. The complexity of tackling these challenges requires strategic partnerships and synergies. In this context, the integration of art and science stands out as a particularly promising avenue to foster societal transformation and the development of creative solutions. The present paper draws on the experiences gained from an art-science project - exCHANGE - born from the collaboration between a local artist association and a research institution in South Tyrol (Italy). exCHANGE brings together six artists and six researchers from different disciplines selected to collaboratively explore and address specific aspects of inequalities. The project takes place from March to September 2024, spanning six months during which the six transdisciplinary tandems are asked to work together to create novel insights and tangible outcomes through the fusion of artistic expression and scientific inquiry. exCHANGE utilizes a meta-research lens to continuously monitor the progress and dynamics within the six parallel projects. A multi-method qualitative approach is employed, which includes participant observation, reflective diaries, and focus groups with the participants to foster a comprehensive understanding of the collaborative processes within the project. The meta-research lens applied to the collaborative processes within the project provides a rich tapestry of insights, contributing to the growing body of findings on interdisciplinary collaboration. By sharing lessons learnt, best practices, and possible pitfalls, this contribution aims to inspire future endeavours that harness the power of art-science integration to break down barriers between disciplines and generate new ideas and solutions to pressing problems.

Furthermore, exCHANGE aims to monitor the impact of such collaborations on society. The project concludes with a final exhibition that will be open for two weeks in October 2024. During this period, the impact of the collaboration, the generated output, and the public reception will be evaluated through focus groups and interviews with the public. exCHANGE’s comprehensive assessment aims thus to shed light not only on the collaborative process but also on the broader societal implications of art-science integration, providing valuable insights for future initiatives in this domain.

Fridays for Future, climate crisis, – the debate about climate change and ecological sustainability has moved to the centre of society. The question is what options for action exist and what conditions must be in place for a societal transformation towards greater sustainability.

In this process scientific research, artistic practice and society are increasingly intertwined. Climate researchers seek exchange with artists or adapt artistic processes, while artistic practice is turning to ecological themes. However, it is debated to what extent the arts can generate sustainable ecological effects by fuelling a thematic debate without questioning structures and logics of production in the sense of a critical practice. More and more initiatives and funding bodies are also trying to bring artists together with climate researchers.

Unlike traditional science communication, these approaches foster new ways of co-creation by engaging with different communities. Yet, our understanding of their impact is limited. Questions remain about equal collaboration, exchange formats, quality criteria, funding structures as well as perceptions about and experiences of blurring boundaries of science communication, knowledge co-creation and activism.

Our inter- and transdisciplinary project ‘Relational Encounters between the Arts and Climate Research’ is a collaboration between two institutions (EcoArtlab, Academy of Arts University of Applied Science Bern and mLAB, Institute of Geography, University of Bern). The project investigates the interactions between artistic research, geography, critical sustainability research and climatology and opens new approaches to knowledge co-creation and several dimensions of justice.

One aim is to develop, in dialogue with practitioners, evaluation criteria and a set of promising factors and lessons learned for future climate-art collaborations.

In the conference presentation we wish to exchange on methodological challenges of such applied research by reflecting on two of our selected tools, namely residencies and a design lab workshop format.

Residencies are climate and sustainability thematic-led collaborations between artists, scientists, and activists. They work together for a period of up to eight months and produce a dialogue-based output that does justice to the various disciplines and practices involved. The conception of the residency is carried out by the researchers. The residents have all the freedom for the development of research and artistic positions. The projects, the collaboration and the external impact are monitored and evaluated by the project team.

The second method is a workshop format with representatives of research, the arts and funding bodies. We explore in a first step productive, frustrating, and unusual experiences made so far in various art/science collaborations within existing structures. The second step is a moderated design lab, where we develop possible new forms of collaborations with new ideas and questions that can be utilized for our own work and feed back to the funding institutions.

With our presentation we contribute to the general conference theme of the advancement of inter- and transdisciplinary concepts and processes. Research results will provide a better understanding of how collaborations between different knowledge systems such as research, activism and arts function, the potential power structures they are embedded in, and resulting potentials and challenges for project implementations and possible implications for evaluation criteria of integration in transdisciplinary projects.

Interculturality refers to ‘the relations that exist between culturally diverse human groups in a given society’. This concept is applicable to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research projects because they consist of expert members from diverse fields of research with different terminologies, values for evaluation, and ways of thinking. Therefore, we should address interculturality for better directions of inter- and transdisciplinary projects, particularly when cognitive or epistemological discrepancies exist among project members. Here, we show the results of in-project participatory observation and action research in two large-scale interdisciplinary projects on the evolution and dispersal of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and discuss how interculturality works for better collaboration.

The first case was the Cultural History of PaleoAsia project (Fiscal year 2016–2020), which aimed to understand the distinct patterns in the formation of modern human cultures across Asia. More than 50 researchers, including archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, mathematical biologists, and palaeoenvironmental scientists, collaborated in this project. As the project progressed, the members found it difficult to share key concepts such as culture, environment, and technology with them. Therefore, we attempted to span conceptual and cultural boundaries among the different domains involved by applying lexical analysis, network graphs, and questionnaire surveys. First, a lexical analysis of the full text of the project’s conference proceedings, annual reports, and website revealed that the term ‘culture’ was used in the context of materials (e.g. lithic culture, ceramic culture, etc.), geography (e.g. cultural zones), temporality (e.g. Aurignacian culture) and dynamics (e.g. cultural ecology). Second, the progress of interdisciplinary co-authorship was monitored through a network graph analysis of conference proceedings; the number of co-authors was high in the archaeology groups and low in the cultural anthropology group. Third, a questionnaire survey (N=52) revealed that cultural anthropologists prefer single authorships over other researchers. Regarding the fundamental concept of culture, 70% of the archaeologists chose’ behaviour. Among cultural anthropologists and mathematical biologists, there was no poll for ‘materials’, while the numbers for ‘behaviour’ and ‘information’ were almost equal. Based on this observation, we facilitated scholarly communication among researchers with different values and thoughts for better collaboration.

The second case was the Out of Eurasia project (FY 2019–2023), which conducted an integrative historical science of the human dispersal and cultural development out of Eurasia, namely, the Japanese archipelago, North and South Americas, and Oceania, with an involvement of more than 80 researchers in seven research groups ranging from archaeology, arts, ethnology, neurobiology, genomics, and informatics. The initiative aims to foster the creation of a new academic discipline, ‘Integrative Human History’, beyond traditional interdisciplinary approaches, by encouraging knowledge exchanges between diverse fields to transcend existing academic boundaries. One of the authors (Ōnishi) was principal investigator of an ethnology group and conducted a network analysis of joint research relationship among participating members in terms of academic specialty, role, and research method. The resultant graphs revealed the increasing magnitude of the interdisciplinary interactions. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing a shift to online meetings, the initiative facilitated meaningful discussions across fields with a notable effort to understand and engage with other disciplines that collectively contribute to the project's goals. This study concludes that the initiative succeeded in promoting interdisciplinary dialogue, contributing to the construction of an integrative approach to human history.

*Across all sectors, diverse stakeholders are coming to the table to address matters of planetary crisis. We agree with the conference organizers that the challenges of working productively together across incompatible and sometimes even hostile domains do not disappear simply because the issues are dire. The urgent call for inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches to address planetary problems presents not only the potential clash or combination of epistemologies, but conundrums around the co-presence of multiple scales of action.

*Malcolm Gladwell (2000) popularized the idea that large-scale change was a (simple) matter of crossing a threshold, beyond which accumulative effects would prompt cascading systemic shifts. This notion is alluring, but assumes the presence of singularly-focused energies that move together toward a tipping point. Yet, if we consider that the experiential enactments of anything we might call “global” or “planetary” have never been a matter of scale, in the way these terms suggest on the surface, how might we change the terms or the lens to find new pathways and energies?

*Relatedly, although interdisciplinarity seems wise and is still the most common ‘go to’ orientation, we share the concern of scholars such as Des Fitzgerald and Felicity Callard (2015) about “the regime of the inter-,” whereby “certain visions of territory – along with the corollary concepts of borders, incursions, and empire-building – tend to loom large.” In turn, we invite alternate epistemologies of practice that disrupt notions of scale, size, and territory, to create connections borne out of conditions of vulnerability and presence.

*This paper proposes to think through this challenge through the lens of vulnerability, as both site and direction of practice and collaboration. We ask: if diverse stakeholders disciplinarity (inter- or trans-) shift to how we pay attention, or how attention is being directed or even mined, what new factors appear? What new experimental meeting points arise? Among the many directions one could take in thinking about this question, we pose questions close to the premises of our own approaches: First, how might a starting point of “vulnerability” be a generative tool for working with diverse stakeholders to address ‘planetary’ or ‘global’ or ‘local’ concerns? Then, and being inspired by Kuran, et al (2020), we combine this with another question: in what ways can the complexities of polycrisis be reconfigured by taking more deliberately intersectional perspectives?

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Fitzgerald, D., and Callard, F. (2015). Rethinking Interdisciplinarity across the Social Sciences and the Neurosciences. Palgrave.

Gladwell, M. (2000). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Little, Brown.

Kuran, C.H.A., et al (2020). Vulnerability and vulnerable groups from an intersectionality perspective. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101826

Mainstream design and architectural education have traditionally emphasized material-embedded knowledge and "designerly ways of knowing" (Cross, 2010). However, contemporary discourse emphasizes the need to reconsider these paradigms within the context of global socio-political and socio-economic inequalities, signaling a shift towards the infusion of diverse disciplinary perspectives into design pedagogy, particularly those capable of shifting design away from a material-centric, designer-focused ethos towards one that is human-centered and co-produced (Norman, 2024) (Busciantella-Ricci et al., 2022)(Herriott, 2023) . Pioneers, eg- (Awan, 2020) (Bridle, 2015) (Forensic Architecture, 2010) engage with design practice in a manner that authentically addresses socio-political issues unlike the mainstream outcome-driven design culture.Their contributions often manifest not as preconceived designable objects, but as direct outcomes of empathetic and intuitively transdisciplinary lenses. This evolution in design culture calls for its integration into education, necessitating diverse disciplinary perspectives to foster inclusive and socially responsible design practices.

This paper aims to illustrate the centrality and crucial need for transdisciplinary perspectives and interdisciplinary methodologies when designing for a more inclusive and equitable world. Through academic case studies of student work produced by the authors in the University of Sheffield (UK) and in Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology (India), it demonstrates how adopting gendered perspectives acted as a provocation and a catalyst to create interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches within the design research. Based on academic case studies conducted in the public realm, it demonstrates this through two directions:

How gendered perspectives necessitate and influence the implementation of transdisciplinary contextual understanding of mobility in cities, and

How theoretical concepts in sociology, psychology and other domains of study pertaining to gendered exclusions were required in the study. Therefore, they had to be translated and embedded creatively into design processes resulting in multiple interdisciplinary methodologies and actionable tools.

Interdisciplinary approaches evolved based on needs identified when conducting transdisciplinary contextual studies with gendered lenses. This understanding prompted the exploration into two primary trajectories: a) Female fear and its cyclic creation in public transit spaces, and b) Diversity and inequality in mobility experiences among women due to intersectional identities.

To articulate the impact of fear on spatial navigation, especially among women, cognitive mapping, rooted in psychology, was reintroduced as a tool in spatial studies. This methodology proved effective in evaluating how physical spaces catalyze experiences of exclusion. Additionally, ethnographic studies were utilized to facilitate articulation of fear experienced by women due to public behavior like man-spreading and the male gaze. These studies provided foundational data for subsequent participatory activities.

While exploring gendered perspectives, the need for intersectional explorations became evident in various ways. Dramatic differences in wayfinding experiences based on gender were observed, deepening in complexity for individuals with intersectional identities, particularly women from lower socio-economic backgrounds or with lower literacy levels. A unique study investigated "mothering" as a practice influenced by the intersectional identity of being a woman and a parent, considering nuances such as trip chaining. Furthermore, in one project, cognitive mapping, lead to the emergence of gendered intersectionalities as a new perspective to examine the decision-making process shaping the journey of working women.

Through these case studies of academic projects, the paper reflects on and proposes two pathways of synthesis - Pedagogic frameworks for transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary gender studies in design and the implications of such methodologies in education on design practice.