‘Research is becoming more meshed’

It was the word ‘transdisciplinary’ in the provisional title of Zeynep Birsel’s PhD-research that triggered us to invite her to share her research experiences: Transdisciplinary encounters in the Creative Industries: A Q Study on collaboration at the intersection of art, science and technology – next to the warm recommendation of her colleagues at the launch of the DIT platform.   

Affiliated with the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Zeynep researches collaborations at the interface of science, art and technology. A local example of such a collaboration is the Science Gallery at the Erasmus MC. Here, people from different backgrounds in science, art, society, education, and healthcare come together to design exhibitions, events, and educational programs. Zeynep is particularly triggered by questions such as: How can collaboration across diverse epistemic cultures be conceptualised in a shared framework? What are certain patterns in the ways that artists and scientists engage in collaborative practices? How do participants from different epistemic cultures collaborate in the absence of consensus? And how can research on this topic potentially transform knowledge generation and go beyond disciplinary boundaries?  

Such questions do not originate from nowhere but from a 15-year professional career in the realm of universities working with scientists on bringing their ideas to the market. What is far too often forgotten is that this involves much more than a linear ‘transfer’ of ideas. In her career she has often encountered the problem that many technological innovations are not adopted or diffused as they are developed with much concern over technology and not enough care over the social and cultural context that these innovations are expected to thrive in economically. 

„I kind of got struck by this differentiation between technology and society. How scientists were so focused on the technology and what it technically can do because it was coming from their own research, so it was fascinating for them, but it spoke very little to the society. Making that relevance, making that bridge, was for the most part missing. And that appeared to be one of the reasons, or why those very early-stage technologies could not make their way into use. So, I started becoming much more interested in this link between science and society”  

Design thinking and q-methodology 

Searching for ways to help incubators, technoparks, designers and small to medium sized family-owned businesses in connecting their ideas to societal needs, Zeynep first turned to ‘design thinking’ (Zeynep’s top picks are Rowe P.G., 1991 Design Thinking and Norman D.A., 2013 The Design of Everyday Things), and then got interested in art as a tool to bridge societal perceptions and the use of technology. “Art is bringing in more radical views, also ethical and moral and cultural aspects into the discussions”. Consequently, this sparked her interest to research the connection between science, art, and technology in more depth, which eventually led to pursue a PhD.  

Last year, Zeynep spent time exploring how to best study the diverse types of collaborations and disciplinary interactions in an inclusive way that allows for a systematic approach capturing the perspectives of those engaged in such collaborations. This brought her to use q-methodology (read more here or here) and to conduct 42 interviews with people from eighteen different countries about their experiences in such collaborations. During the interviews, she would ask interviewees to rank statements about collaborating with others, such as “Collaboration across diverse disciplines requires a reciprocal commitment to learn and be curious about each other's knowledge domains.”, “Our methods in approaching the inquiry field are emergent, plural and designed specific to the project” or “In the collaborative process we aim at some level of integration of diverse disciplinary methods and knowledge.”. This proved to be a very reflective process both concerning the content and the approach – which sparked interest and inspirations with her interviewees.  

Bridging disciplines in collaboration 

Thus, Zeynep’s research addresses a specific societal problem: new knowledge creation and innovation gain more relevancy when built on dialogues between science, art, technology and society. There seems to be a need to bridge and bring into conversation artists, engineers, designers, scientists and citizens in order to enhance collective thinking around desired futures. On a policy level this new paradigm of co-creating has implications on public money being wisely spend. In researching this question, Zeynep has come to appreciate the importance of building lasting networks of collaboration with societal partners as well as with researchers from other fields. Reflecting on her research approach and practices, Zeynep considers her research to be transformative to the extent that it involves the following: 

1. Systematising knowledge on collaborations: “In the beginning I had very consistent reactions … it can't be done, it's too diverse, it's too… Almost each collaboration is specific to itself, you can't systematically build a knowledge around that … I'm also in the process of analysing data, but I can see that there are patterns. So, it was transformative in the sense that I was kind of able to tap into this systematic view on a diverse field.” 

2. Generating Societal relevance & impact: “I think, [the research] was transformative in the way that it generated an unexpected level of interest and response from the people in the field … And that was a wake-up call for me that kind of indicated how much need there was out there for people to understand even their own experience … So, they [interviews] kind of opened up a few doors here and there which I think is great.”

3. Overcoming disciplinary boundaries: “[The research] has the potential to transform the way we generate knowledge at this specific intersection. And in a way to make it more explicit that there is a big tendency and trend to move into spaces where there are no disciplinary boundaries ... And so that was also transformative in a way to see how disciplinary understanding is being transformed into something more fluid …  

Such transformative ways of researching come with their own struggles. Zeynep had to build her own network both within but also outside the university – such investment in network relations is important for the quality of results, the societal relevance as well as impacts of one’s research. Since Zeynep crosses disciplines with her research, there is not ‘the’ journal to turn to; and using software and methods that are not mainstream also means facing struggles on how to understand the limits, opportunities as well as technical troubles. She outlines her wish for support here: “Sometimes it takes days to figure out some technical nuisance. So, I think there should be a more, you know, practical, pragmatic platform technology use support for researchers.” Beyond such struggles, Zeynep hopes to build on the growing network of societal partners and academics to develop a research project on ways to incubate diverse projects that use the three muscles of science, art, and technology altogether. It is also where in her own words: Research is no longer a matter of proving or disproving or working with hypotheses. Research is becoming more meshed with experimentation, with linking more with society and different ways of knowing, legitimizing different ways of knowing”.  

Exploring transformative research with DIT

We hope you enjoyed reading this piece. It is part of our series “Exploring transformative research” in the Transformative Research ecosystem. In a first working paper, the Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform has started off drawing an ideal-type picture of what Transformative Research could mean. This blog series is meant to take a step back and to explore the many facets of transformative research in practice as well as to discuss and trace the changes necessary in universities and the academic system to enable such research. We are interested in questions such as: How are people doing research that addresses societal challenges and/or contributes to making our societies more just and sustainable? In which ways are they innovating the way research is done? What are they struggling with in doing so? Why are they doing transformative research and what excites them about it? If you have a story to share about doing transformative research yourself, please reach out to the DIT platform.