Integrative Knowledge and Transdisciplinarity

A cross-cutting theme at the UIA relates to the challenge of integrating the mass of complex information generated through the various research areas, into a manageable, coherent and useful form. The need for this integration and inter- or trans-disciplinary approach is the growing realisation that a holistic perspective on current problems and strategies will yield the most effective results. Given the complexity of the global problems facing humanity, this attempt to integrate research on it requires a complex response, interrelating many different intellectual resources and insights and involving sensitivity to very different kinds of constraint - which may be incompatible or even mutually antagonistic.

Much of the research on this theme has addressed the challenge of classifying and integrating the material held in the UIA databases. For instance, mapping the complexity represented by networks of international organizations generated though research into international organizations and civil society and detailed in the publication the Yearbook of International Organizations. Another example would be the exploration of interdisciplinary relationships between organizations, problems, strategies, values and human development generated through research on the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential  - which in turn includes an extensive bibliography of integrative knowledge, unitary understanding, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity.

Approaches and solutions that the UIA has created in the face of the challenge of transdisciplinarity include information visualization and sonorification and the use of VRML software to map relationships and networks within the databases, as part of our complementary work on Alternative Representations of Information. Other examples include the identification of classes of symbols from traditional and modern cultures to inform policy making in the Integrative Concepts and Symbols section of the Encyclopedia, and the use of metaphor for exploring new ways of understanding complexity in the Patterns and Metaphor section of the Encyclopedia.

Further information is available on an external site at selected websites on integrative knowledge.