Scientific Supervision of Doctoral Schools in Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research

In 2013 the Federal State of North Rhine Westfalia (NRW) in Germany launched a program entitled “Progress NRW. Research and Innovation for Sustainable Development” to fund projects relating to the grand challenges that societies are facing, and their implementation between 2013 and 2020 (www.wissenschaft.nrw.de/ministerium/leitlinien-des-ministeriums/fortschritt-nrw/). One focus of this program is to support twelve doctoral schools to stimulate capacity-building in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research.

The funding body commissioned the WZB to accompany these doctoral schools in order to support the learning with professional supervision. The WZB organizes annual workshops with lectures, group work and coaching to address relevant issues like challenges and specificities of inter- and transdisciplinary research in the context of academic qualification, as well as the role and career prospects of the coordinators of these doctoral schools.

The final report will present the findings so as to enable similar institutions to learn from these experiences.