Dr A. Horn (Annemarie)

My expertise and interest lie in the topics of inter- and transdisciplinarity. For complex, pressing societal issues approaches from a single scientific perspective don’t suffice. Moreover, many funding schemes demand projects that transcend disciplinary and academic boundaries. But how do you actually do inter- and transdisciplinarity in practice? How do you generate new knowledge in which diverse disciplinary and societal perspectives meet and leverage each other to gain insights that could not have arisen from a single disciplinary perspective? How can differences – in approaches, values, and language – be deployed to enrich understanding, rather than function as sources of conflict or obstacles that are to be avoided and ignored?

In my research I aim to contribute to answering these questions by studying inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in research and education. In doing so, I follow up on the research that I have done during my PhD during which I investigated inter- and transdisciplinary learning among master students. As part of my PhD, I designed, implemented, and taught two inter- and transdisciplinary master courses. In the context of those courses, I studied how students collaborate with each other and societal partners, and how these modes of collaboration can be learned and trained.