U-shaped learning: a new model for transdisciplinary education

Over the past two decades, transdisciplinarity has been cited increasingly by policymakers and university actors as a means to reshape learning and research processes to improve society’s potential to tackle grand societal challenges. Most recently, the Earth-Humanity Charter calls for the co-creation of a worldwide network of thousands of transdisciplinary hubs that will be active at local, national, and global levels, with a function to address the existential challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. To date, the majority of research published on transdisciplinarity focuses on the transdisciplinary research process. The transdisciplinary learning process i.e., how researchers, students, academic and extra-academic actors can develop their capacity for transdisciplinarity, is under-researched. As a result, many practitioners find themselves designing transdisciplinary learning experiences without an evidence base regarding the learning process, the learning gains of those involved or learning design principles. Based on the results of a literature review of transdisciplinarity, this article proposes that transdisciplinary practice requires two capacities: knowledge integration and actionable knowledge (closing the knowledge-action gap). These capacities are supported by the development (or presence) of intra-personal, interpersonal and cognitive competencies. The results suggest that a U-shaped model of transdisciplinary learning is evident in practice. This conceptual model also potentially enables the measurement of learning gains in transdisciplinary education.