INTERACT has established a center for transdisciplinary research to support inter- and transdisciplinary research within University of Oulu by

  • conducting transdisciplinary research
  • studying transdisciplinary research as a phenomenon
  • arranging seminars and events that encourage and support transdisciplinary research

TRaD - Conference on Transdisciplinary Research and Design

Publications

Some examples of our publications where we specifically examine transdisciplinarity as a phenomenon in research, design, and education:

History

Before establishment of the center we have for long been doing inter/transdisciplinary research and teaching, mostly under the umbrella of EveLINE research group, and that work still continues.

INTERACT researchers had a long history of multidisciplinary research collaboration already before some of the group members formally created the multidisciplinary (even transdisciplinary) EveLINE research group in 2008, together with researchers from human and social sciences. This combination of humanistic and information technology oriented disciplines has given the EveLINE researchers new viewpoints for studying our technology-rich everyday life. Even though EveLINE group members, coming from different disciplines, have their own foci for their research they still have a common interest in understanding of 'what's going on' in interaction between people in this technology-rich everyday life - what people do, why, and how, and can we somehow help them to see the possibilities of technology use. EveLINE researchers with INTERACT background have a special interest in understanding and supporting the interaction between technology users and technology developers.

More information of the history and working practices of EveLINE group can be found from here.

Approach

The research framework and strategy of 'nexus analysis' (Scollon & Scollon 2004) is one of the ways for us to approach transdisciplinary collaboration. INTERACT and EveLINE researchers have a shared interest in further developing nexus analysis as a research framework and promoting its use also on other disciplines as linguistics, where it is more generally used; see e.g. the following publications: