Creating meeting grounds for transdisciplinary climate research: the role of humanities and social sciences in grand challenges

ABSTRACT

In this position paper, we use the example of The University of Texas at Austin’s Planet Texas 2050 (PT2050) to argue that the Grand Challenge (GC) framework for ambitious research initiatives must create meeting grounds for transdisciplinary integration of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), arts, and humanities, along with community perspectives. We trace the historical trajectory of GCs, and reframe GC initiatives within the literature of inter- and transdisciplinarity. We present PT2050 as a case study of the infrastructural supports and imaginative process for creating level meeting grounds for transdisciplinarity. We demonstrate the benefits of these meeting grounds through projects, products, and funding generated. We contend that engaging arts, humanities, and community in co-design from the beginning is critical because complex, urgent challenges such as the climate crisis are embedded in human societies and demand solutions based in understanding of social, cultural, and historical contexts as well as STEM applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Grand challenges
• transdisciplinary research
• arts and humanities
• climate change
• community partnerships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 No one has yet attempted a comprehensive review of the proliferating university-led GCs, and this task is beyond the scope of this article. We recognize that some GCs may involve more input from the arts and humanities than is apparent from summary reports and websites. Our discussion here is based on an overview of select GCs at peer institutions carried out by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors at UT Austin at the inception of the Bridging Barriers initiative, a review of the literature on GCs stretching back to the early 1980s, and an in-depth examination of both scholarly publications and online materials regarding several of the most prominent current GCs at US-based R1 universities.

2 Bridging Barriers also sponsors Good Systems, on the social impacts of AI, and Whole Communities Whole Health, on creating equitable health outcomes with communities.

3 Although several of the disciplines participating in this GC find the term ‘resilience’ problematic, due to racism (Ranganathan and Bratman 2021), insufficient attention to equity (Friend and Moench 2013; Joseph 2013), and perpetuation of the status quo (LeMenager and Foote 2014), the GC leadership team found the most agreement around ‘resilience’ (rather than sustainability, climate adaptation, etc.) during the early years of the programme. In light of the critique surrounding this term, we adopted the following definition of resilience in our internal key terms and values document: ‘Resilience is often defined as the ability of a person, community, or system to withstand and recover from shocks due to environmental, sociopolitical, and economic stresses—but we take a broader view. We aim to improve communities’ ability to ‘bounce forward’ from shocks by examining the conditions that produce them and fostering civic dialogue, shared narratives, and social support systems.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The University of Texas at Austin Bridging Barriers Initiative, the Office of the Vice-President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors; University of Texas at Austin.

Notes on contributors

Katherine Lieberknecht

Katherine Lieberknecht researches environmental planning using an equity and justice lens. Her professional and academic focus areas include green infrastructure planning, water resources planning, and climate adaptation planning. She is an assistant professor in Community and Regional Planning in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin, co-founded the Planet Texas research programme, and leads or co-leads several other long-term community-engaged research projects focused on environmental planning and local knowledge.

Heather Houser

Heather Houser writes about contemporary culture, the environment, and science and is Professor of English at The University of Texas at Austin. Her books include Infowhelm: Environmental Art & Literature in an Age of Data (Columbia UP, 2020), up for the 2021 ASLE-UKI Book Prize, and Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction: Environment and Affect (Columbia UP, 2014), winner of the 2015 ASAP Book Prize. She co-founded Planet Texas 2050 in 2017 and is an associate editor at the journal Contemporary Literature.

Adam Rabinowitz

Adam Rabinowitz is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and Associate Professor of Classics at The University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the peripheries of the Classical world and on ancient colonial interactions between settlers, local populations, and the environment, as well as on digital approaches to archaeology and historical data. He is a co-founder of the Planet Texas 2050 Grand Challenge, co-director of the Periods, Organized (PeriodO) Linked Data gazetteer (perio.do), and co-director of the Histria Multiscalar Archaeological Project at the Greek and Roman site of Histria in Romania.

Suzanne A. Pierce

Suzanne Pierce is a Research Scientist with the Texas Advanced Computing Center and Environmental Science Institute in the Jackson School of Geosciences. Dr. Pierce leads an NSF-funded community of researchers using intelligent systems to understand Earth, including water, energy, urbanization, and ecosystem services. Results from her research develop tools and techniques that aid integrated modelling and group decision support.

Lourdes Rodríguez

Lourdes Rodriguez. Born in Puerto Rico, Dr. Rodríguez serves as Chief Executive Officer of the David Rockefeller Fund and holds an appointment as an Adjunct Faculty with the UTHealth School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus. Prior to that, she served as Senior Program Officer for Women's Health at the Saint David's Foundation and Associate Professor and Director of Community-Driven Initiatives at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. As a public health practitioner, and in both academic and philanthropic roles, she collaborates, develops, and evaluates initiatives to improve health with people most impacted by health inequities.

Fernanda Leite

Fernanda Leite is a Professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds the John A. Focht Centennial Teaching Fellowship in Civil Engineering. She is the past chair of Planet Texas 2050 and serves on its leadership team. Her built environment research program sits at the interface of engineering and computing.

Jonathan Lowell

Jonathan Lowell is the Community Liaison for the Planet Texas 2050 Grand Challenge at The University of Texas at Austin, where he helps ensure research is done with community and that its outputs have social impacts.

Jennifer Nelson Gray

Jenny Nelson Gray is a programme manager for mission-driven research initiatives. In the international agricultural development sector from 2003 through 2017, she worked with plant breeders, geneticists, modellers, social scientists and government and non-profit partners to create and implement interdisciplinary research projects in Mexico, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Nepal, and Pakistan. Since 2018, she has worked with research-to-action teams in Texas and the US Gulf Coast on resilience-building initiatives with the goal of contributing to shaping a more equitable and social impact-oriented academic culture.