Raber, Bo Manuel[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC) >]
Stankiewicz, Jacek[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC) >]
Rojas Aedo, Ricardo Arturo[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) > Department of Physics and Materials Science (DPHYMS) >]
Hondrila, Kristina[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC) >]
Pickar, Karl Arthur[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Social Sciences (DSOC) >]
[en] discipline ; critical inter-disciplinarity ; complexity ; science ; doctoral school course ; responsible research and innovation
[en] Our existential sustainability challenges involve human–environment–technology systems that are complex, dynamic and tightly coupled. But at universities, knowledge, in teaching and research, is mostly organized into discrete parcels, the disciplines. These are further divided into the categories of natural sciences, social science and the humanities. This paper addresses the question of how in their training of researchers, universities can equip them to better understand their roles and also to act as change agents. It describes a doctoral school course in transferable skills that is offered across faculties. The unique aim of the course is to provide a space for reflection on different research paradigms and the way they differ in their framing the role of a scientific researcher in pluralist societies that face existential challenges. The course introduces diverse more recent approaches to scientific inquiry that harness the potential of democratizing science in our networked knowledge society, including critical interdisciplinarity, post-normal science, citizen science and transformative sustainability science, that complement normal disciplinary research practices.