Reflexive Practice for Inter and Trans Disciplinary Research in the Third Millennium: Are You Ready for It?

One of the characteristics of the development of research in the third millennium is the recent complexity of the addressed problems and the need to find solutions and create knowledge that goes beyond the individual disciplines. Some well-known phenomena, such as Globalization and the ever-growing interdependence between economic, sociological, and environmental issues, stress the importance of developing real inter disciplinary or trans disciplinary research. Unfortunately, both academic education and research have always been divided into each specialized field, and specialization is steadily growing. To meet the challenges of modern and future world, it is essential to develop new perspectives for boosting the cooperation and communications among different disciplinarians. Is it possible to identify peculiar (soft) skills or predispositions that a scientist can use (or have) to facilitate this process? The topic also includes considerations about opportunities and threats coming from interdisciplinary research and how to reflect on one’s own personal research experience, according to the paradigm of reflexive practice in Second Order Cybernetics. A particular important aspect is related to communication among scientist of different disciplines. Are there methods and approaches that can improve the efficacy of communication? The last but not the least important theme is how to effectively teach high level university or Ph. D students inter or trans disciplinary research approaches to prepare them to this difficult but intriguing task. The topic includes case studies and considerations coming from reflexive practice based on author’s experiences in the case of Computational Sustainability, with the aim of abstracting from these experiences general considerations that can be useful in another different multidisciplinary contexts.