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Abstract
Based on the appearance of the term within the academic literature, it would appear that transdisciplinarity (TD) approaches are receiving increased research attention. However, the literature suggests a lack of consensus over how TD is defined and classified. This could give rise to inconsistency and papers that claim to be TD which are not, and alternatively papers that fail to mention TD but which might be classified as such. This is significant and creates a challenge in identifying the true level of TD research. This work contributes towards understanding the state of TD within engineering. Explicitly, we address the research question: Is the engineering academic literature claiming to be TD, actually TD? Within this study we operationalise the work of Jantsch and use this as a means to classify the disciplinarity of 177 engineering journal papers which reference TD within their abstract. The results show only 24% to be TD. The majority (64%) are classified as interdisciplinary. Conclusions find that to improve consistency, a clear definition and rules for differentiation between TD and ID research are required. Future work calls for: (1) comparative studies which apply different methods for assessing disciplinarity across the dataset used within this study and which use the method employed within this study across different fields. (2) Research to analyse whether TD working is being undertaken in engineering without it being referenced within the paper.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Transdisciplinary Engineering for Complex Socio-Technical Systems - Real-Life Applications - Proceedings of the 27th ISTE International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering |
Editors | Jerzy Pokojski, Maciej Gil, Linda Newnes, Josip Stjepandic, Nel Wognum |
Publisher | IOS Press BV |
Pages | 23-31 |
Number of pages | 9 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781614994398 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Sept 2020 |
Event | 27th ISTE International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering, TE 2020 - Virtual, Online, Poland Duration: 1 Jul 2020 → 10 Jul 2020 |
Publication series
Name | Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering |
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Volume | 12 |
Conference
Conference | 27th ISTE International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering, TE 2020 |
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Country/Territory | Poland |
City | Virtual, Online |
Period | 1/07/20 → 10/07/20 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The work reported in this paper was undertaken as part of the Designing the Future: Resilient Trans-Disciplinary Design Engineers Project, at the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Surrey. The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant EP/R013179/1.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The authors and IOS Press.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
The work reported in this paper was undertaken as part of the Designing the Future: Resilient Trans-Disciplinary Design Engineers Project, at the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Surrey. The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Grant EP/R013179/1.
Keywords
- Content Analysis
- Disciplinarity
- Trans-disciplinarity
- Transdisciplinary
- Transdisciplinary Engineering
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Computer Science Applications
- Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
- Software
- Algebra and Number Theory
- Strategy and Management
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Classifying the disciplinarity of engineering academic literature'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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Platform: Designing the Future: Resilient Trans-Disciplinary Design Engineers
Newnes, L. (PI), Dhokia, V. (CoI), Flynn, J. (CoI), Gopsill, J. (CoI), McManus, M. (CoI), Mullineux, G. (CoI), Newman, S. (CoI), Shokrani Chaharsooghi, A. (CoI), Trask, R. (CoI), Essink, W. (Researcher) & Lattanzio, S. (Researcher)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
1/12/17 → 31/08/23
Project: Research council