Reflexive Practice for Inter and Trans Disciplinary Research in the Third Millennium

Abstract

This paper is about two of the most challenging themes of the science of this century, namely the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. First, some motivations about the difficulties of making interdisciplinary research are described and analyzed. Then, the paper describes an example of a research activity among scientists of different disciplines, the Computational Sustainability, which involves several different “actors”: information and computer scientists, mathematicians, economist, geologist, and biologists. Starting from this experience, a new abstract model for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research is presented, with some considerations about the soft skill (especially, communication skills) that an interdisciplinary researcher should develop. Finally, considerations about moving from inter to transdisciplinary research end the paper; they underline the importance to create a common goal among different disciplines to transfer profitably their results into Society, preferably aiming at increasing the quality of life of humans, plants, and animals.