Idea of the handbook

Abstract

Transdisciplinary orientations in research, education and institutions try to overcome the mismatch between knowledge production in academia, and knowledge requests for solving societal problems. Addressing societal knowledge demands by designing research processes in a transdisciplinary way has several major implications. It becomes necessary to transgress boundaries between different academic cultures, such as between the humanities and the natural sciences. Furthermore, researchers have to step into problem fields and engage in mutual learning with people in the life-world. In doing so, disciplinary standards of knowledge production are sacrificed. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a state of the art for transdisciplinary forms of research. This is best done by learning from experiences. The Handbook is intended to enable learning from exemplary experiences in research and to provide a more systematic account of some cross-cutting issues. This chapter describes the idea behind the Handbook and the contents of the Handbook. © 2008 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.