Transdisciplinary Research in Higher Education: Towards a Paradigm for Sustainable Development

Abstract

This review provides an understanding of and justification for the transdisciplinary research(TDR) as an action-oriented research approach in higher education that promotes sustainabledevelopment in society.Current studies on TDR show that today more than ever before, there is a shifting landscape of knowledge generation in contemporary societies owing to the nature and number of challenges society is seized with which among others include political strife, hunger, unemployment, diseases, and urban migration.Little attests to the fact that societal problems have become too complex for one point of view as provided for by disciplinary research.The need therefore to make research relevant and contextual in addressing these complex reallifechallenges facing society today cannot be overemphasized when looked at in the context of sustainable development.This review argues that contemporary sustainable development challenges, complex as they are, demand cooperation between specialists and social actors with diverse backgrounds of knowledge and experiencesto be able to effectively track the challenges and come up with practical and contextualized solutions.This review employs document analysis to generate a deeper understanding as well as to proffer a cogent argument for the need for transdisciplinary research in solving contemporary socio-ecological challengesthroughco-production of knowledge in concrete real-life contexts.

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