Research incubator: Guide

How can research between science and practice succeed? “Between Worlds – A Guide to Transdisciplinary Research,” authored by Dr. Josephine B. Schmitt and Samuel T. Simon (CAIS), provides well-founded, practice-oriented answers to this question. It invites readers to understand and shape transdisciplinary research as an effective and collaborative form of scientific engagement.

The guide draws on both up-to-date academic findings and practical experiences from the transdisciplinary research-practice project Unlearning Anti-Feminism on TikTok (UlAT). Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, this project brings together researchers from the University of Cologne and members of the association for political media education mediale pfade. Together with young people, they analyze the perception of anti-feminist content on TikTok and address it through educational initiatives. As part of the accompanying research, conducted by the guide’s authors, interviews, reflection workshops, and collaborative work processes were systematically evaluated. The insights gained form the foundation for the guide’s key recommendations.

The target audience for the guide includes researchers, practitioners, funding bodies, and policy-makers operating at the interface of science and society – or those intending to do so in the future. The guide understands transdisciplinarity not just as a method, but as an attitude: It calls for openness, mutual recognition, and a willingness to engage with diverse forms of knowledge, work logics, and institutional contexts.

The guide offers:

• A brief and accessible introduction to the concepts and background of transdisciplinary research,
• Practice-oriented success factors at the project level, e.g., regarding communication culture, time management, project coordination, knowledge integration, and role clarification,
• Concrete recommendations for funding bodies, e.g., on flexible funding formats, resources for coordination, and targeted capacity building.

Particular emphasis is placed on the “in-between worlds” where transdisciplinary research takes place: between science and practice, between institutional logics, between openness to outcomes and goal orientation. The guide makes it clear that successful transdisciplinary collaboration does not happen by chance – it must be intentionally shaped: through space for self-reflection, dialogical communication, and a reflective project culture.

Thus, the guide is not only a methodological manual but also an invitation to approach research collaboratively, creatively, and with a future-oriented mindset – as a shared learning process in which differences are not seen as obstacles, but as valuable resources.