swiss-academies award for
transdisciplinary research

Call for applications – Deadline: 2 April 2010
(pdf)

Every two years, the td-net for Transdisciplinary Research grants the swiss-academies award for transdisciplinary research to an outstanding transdisciplinary research project by an indi­vidual or a research group. The award of CHF 75,000 is provided by the Stiftung Mercator Schweiz. It must be used for a follow-up project by the winner or the winning team.

The award is given in recognition of excellence and innovation in transdisciplinary research. It is an incentive to researchers of all fields to develop more integrative projects in order to better deal with the complexities of sociocultural, technological, economic, environ­mental and health issues whose causes and effects are not well understood or uncertain.

Based on the principles established by the td-net in dialogue with its national and international scientific community, the major qualities and ways by which a project may contribute to the enhancement and excellence of transdisciplinarity research are:

 

• a substantial contribution to knowledge production in the participating disciplines as well as to the building and transfer of solution-oriented research in the interest of a common good;
• a high level of awareness and a reflexive handling of the complexity of an issue – meaning the complex system of factors that together explain the issue’s current state and its dynamic;
• integration of academic and non-academic perceptions and positions;
• participatory stakeholder and/or community engagement or policy development process;
• scientific and social contextualisation.

Projects that made path-breaking contributions to one or several of these aspects are eligible for this award. Furthermore, in order to be eligible, the applicant’s project must be

• recently (2010, 2009, 2008, not before) or nearly completed;
• based at a Swiss university or research institute (even though the research may be carried out abroad).

The decision of the jury will be based upon the quality of the completed project (not on the follow-up project).

Application deadline: 2 April 2010

To apply please fill in this application form (doc)