Transdisciplinary scholarship gathering builds community, solidarity

Buzzing with the sounds of parallel conversations, laughter and a highly engaged atmosphere, around 200 University of Calgary faculty, students and community members gathered in the MacEwan Hall Ballroom recently to build connections around transdisciplinary scholarship and research opportunities. 

The Sept. 25 Gathering event, led by the Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship (ITS), was an opportunity for the UCalgary community to learn more about the five areas of focus for transdisciplinary research — Health and Life; Digital Worlds; Energy Futures; Cities and Societies; and Democracy, Justice and Sustainability — while meeting the academic co-leads for each area of focus and sharing ideas and exploring opportunities for collaboration.  

“I have the privilege of working with scholars from across our campuses, and gatherings like this provide an opportunity to connect, get ideas for new collaborations and help us move transdisciplinary work forward at UCalgary,” Vice-President (Research) William Ghali said at the event.  

“I’m particularly excited about this initiative, which provides resources, builds capacity, and facilitates collaboration across faculties, schools and research institutes, to enable our community to come together on serious challenges that are too big for one scholar or discipline to solve on their own.”  

In addition to connecting with colleagues, participants explored a variety of activation stations around the room to answer questions about what transdisciplinary scholarship should look like at UCalgary, including how we define success, challenges with transdisciplinary scholarship, and ethical relationship-building.   

Approaching transdisciplinary scholarship in a bold way

For Dr. Yvonne Poitras Pratt, BA'02, MA'05, PhD'11, a Métis scholar in the Werklund School of Education whose work focuses on decolonization and Indigenous education, UCalgary’s approach to transdisciplinary scholarship is bold as it looks to realize transformative potential.  

“It creates a sense of community and solidarity that is absolutely necessary if we want to make lasting social change," she says. "I’ve often said we can’t do this work alone; it must be done in partnership with non-Indigenous allies.” 

Dr. Sulyn Bodnaresko, BA'09, BEdP'17, PhD, manager of One Child Every Child Indigenous Ways of Knowing, agrees. The introduction of transdisciplinary scholarship into the university’s lexicon has opened doors for researchers and the institution to walk on parallel paths towards addressing grand challenges.  

“As a university, we’re in the early stages of building authentic relationships, of gaining alignment across disciplines and communities,” says Bodnaresko. “When doing research like this, we begin new relationships and strengthen established ones. The partnerships that work are often those where power is balanced and solutions are co-created.

“Events like the Gathering are just what we need to foster relationship-building.” 

Join ITS on Oct. 21 for the Health and Life Gathering to hear about initiatives in this area of focus and connect with researchers and industry experts. Find out more and register today.