LCSS Lunch Talk mit Emnet Tadesse Woldegeorgis

Emnet Tadesse Woldegeorgis, DISSS Fellow, AMCHES, South Africa

Beyond Interdisciplinarity: The Challenge of Institutionalising Transdisciplinarity in African Higher Education

While African universities initially developed around rigid disciplinary structures inherited from the colonial period, subsequent decades witnessed the gradual emergence and expansion of interdisciplinary fields driven by nation-building, development priorities, economic restructuring, technological change, and increasingly complex societal challenges. Despite this evolution, the transition to transdisciplinary knowledge production remains limited. This paper traces the historical evolution of knowledge production in African higher education and examines why interdisciplinarity has expanded while transdisciplinarity has been more difficult to institutionalise. It argues that colonial disciplinary legacies, rigid institutional structures, disciplinary incentive systems, and fragmented research governance continue to constrain collaboration across academic and societal boundaries. Consequently, transdisciplinarity is conceptualised not as a linear extension of interdisciplinarity, but as a qualitatively different mode of knowledge production that requires universities to be reconfigured from discipline-based institutions into knowledge ecosystems that facilitate collaboration among academics, policymakers, industry, civil society, and local communities. The paper concludes that the future relevance of African universities will depend not simply on expanding interdisciplinary teaching and research, but on their capacity to institutionalise transdisciplinary knowledge production capable of addressing the continent's increasingly interconnected developmental, environmental, technological, and social challenges.