Institutional Innovation: Re-invigorating the University through Transdisciplinary Engagement

Abstract

The view that ICTs-and-Society is a transdiscipline offers great potential as a way forward. As the community moves toward a shared understanding of what constitutes transdisciplinary engagement a series of new questions are raised. This paper reflects on one of them – the question of how transdisciplinarity can be accomplished in the university. The argument advanced is that by re-framing the challenges of accommodating transdisciplinarity as an opportunity for institutional innovation there is potential to increase the support for research on ICTs-and-Society in the university, and to provide university administrators with a way to demonstrate leadership by adopting a broader innovation agenda that could re-invigorate the university and strengthen its relationship with the broader community in which it is situated.