Transdisciplinary & transformative learning in university education for sustainable development

Dynamic trends such as fluctuating markets, climate change and population growth increasingly threaten the structural, functional and organizational integrity of agro-ecosystems. Accordingly, practitioners and scientists who can respond to these challenges while sustainably managing natural resources are urgently needed. In this regard, universities play a major role as they are educating future decision makers. They have thus the responsibility to create learning opportunities which provide systemic knowledge and train the ability to influence systems. The “International Training Course on Organic Agriculture” (ITCOA), held in Uganda as a transdisciplinary training, has been an intuitive response to this need. ITCOA involves students from Uganda, Ethiopia, Austria, Kenya and Tanzania. The project “Transdisciplinary & transformative learning in university education for sustainable development” (Trans²) complements ITCOA with an explicit reflection and research element, with the overall objective of contributing to an innovation of university education towards trans-disciplinary and transformative learning. Specifically, Trans² will trace the impact ITCOA has made on graduates and in the organic sector in Uganda. Moreover, Trans² will assess the approach of action learning through research and systematize lessons learned over the past several years of implementing ITCOA. Based on current theories of learning, qualitative and quantitative social research methods will be used.