Author:

Keywords:

Transdisciplinary, Social cohesion, urban research, methodology

Abstract:

This paper discusses the trandisciplinary methodology which was applied in the European Platform Social Polis. Transdisciplinary research involves different types of actors, ranging from academic researchers to day-to-day users of particular opportunities in society. It requires specific governance that mobilises different types of knowledge to identify relevant societal problems and to contribute to their solution. Trandisciplinary methodology, therefore, is a research strategy that crosses disciplinary boundaries to develop a holistic approach, often involving researchers, practitioners and other non-academics in the production of knowledge, which can actively contribute to solving crucial societal problems. This paper is addressed to researchers interested in exploring the transdisciplinary approach, to local, national, European and supranational institutions engaged in promoting participatory decision making processes and to European and international research bodies or institutions willing to fund transdisciplinary research. Social Polis is a European Platform funded under the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, which aimed at the elaboration of a European Research Agenda on ‘Cities and Social Cohesion’. In so doing, it developed a transdisciplinary methodology to draw upon the combined experience, knowledge and views of urban practitioners and researchers who work on strengthening cohesion, integration, and inclusion in both European cities and cities in other continents. When its EC funding (2007-2010) came to an end, Social Polis continued in a ‘light’ version, focusing on promoting the development of methodologies for transdisciplinary research in urban studies. Till today Social Polis is the largest international transdisciplinary social platform which has dealt with the complex problématique of Social cohesion, involving over 300 stakeholders with different background. They were brought into a multilayered and plural debate, including researchers, EU, UN, national government and local authority representatives, as well as local NGOs, private-for-profit and community organisations of deprived citizens and migrants, and civil society organizations, involved in combating social exclusion in different domains in cities in Europe, South and North America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The peculiar Social Polis approach tries to take the multidimensionality of social cohesion into account by envisaging the city as a whole. It links micro and macro-studies and analyses with different levels of complexity within a joint-up user-driven problematisation process and shared methodological framework. In this sense is properly holistic (Ramstadt, 1986). The first chapter presents arguments in favour of transdisciplinarity in selected fields, and then discusses concrete practical issues and an ‘ideal’ structure of a possible transdisciplinary research approach. The second chapter explains why the Social Polis project adopted a transdisciplinary methodology and how it was applied. This chapter also examines how the social platform addressed the different problems and difficulties arising within the transdisciplinary undertaking, relating the Social Polis experience to the existing literature and drawing lessons learned from Social Polis. The third chapter attempts to draw out some future perspectives for transdisciplinary research and to identify the challenges and the opportunities for transdisciplinarity in the next few years.