Inventory Project

An Ongoing Project of the Toolkits & Methods Working Group

Core group:
Gabriele Bammer, Bianca Vienni Baptista, Antonietta Di Giulio, Bethany Laursen, Theres Paulsen, Melissa Robson-Williams, Sibylle Studer, Kathrin Wieck

Contributors:
Timothy Bland, Tobias Buser, Peter Deane, Steve Fiore, Isabel Fletcher, Kerstin Hemström, Hanna Hilbert, Stefan Hilser, Josefa Kny, Emilia Nagy, Gabriela Michelini, Yuko Oshini, Heidi Peuraniemi, Martina Schäfer, Mone Spindler, Keisha Taylor Wesselink

Coordinated by:
Melissa Robson-Williams, Sibylle Studer

What is the project about?

The project aspires to

  • provide an overview of ITD toolkits,
  • understand how to adequately characterize ITD toolkits and tools, and
  • explore what we can learn from such a characterization beyond ‘providing an overview’.

What do we mean by a “toolkit”?

The toolkits featured here are collections of methods, procedures, concepts, heuristics, and/or other resources that can be used in designing and implementing interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary processes in research, practice, or education.

There are three kinds of toolkits:

  1. those that focus on interdisciplinarity and/or transdisciplinarity as a whole,
  2. those that address aspects of interdisciplinarity and/or transdisciplinarity (eg stakeholder engagement, defining common goals, or a specific topic, such as gender studies), and
  3. those that are broader in scope and where the majority of tools are relevant to interdisciplinarity and/or transdisciplinarity (eg design thinking).

What are our products?

So far, we have created the following products, with more planned. They are in several different formats to enable different kinds of users to compare the many ITD toolkits available. All products are available from our Toolkit Inventory page.

Published October 2023

Brief, structured description of each of five ITD toolkits

Peer-reviewed Paper

In progress. Led by Bethany Laursen, Bianca Vienni-Baptista, and Gabriele Bammer along with Sibyllle Stüder, Melissa Robson-Williams, Theres Paulsen, and Antonietta Di Giulio

Selected ITD toolkits from our Working Group community. Forthcoming November 2023.

Who are these products for?

The inventory products aim to serve 3 (overlapping) user groups:

  • User type 1: Tool-users working in ITD projects, cross-boundary collaboration or co-creation processes
    • Use case: Search for appropriate tools & methods
  • User type 2: Tool theorists/interested observers
    • Use case: Searching for sources for meta-research on toolkits
  • User type 3: Representatives of existing or “to be created” toolkits 
    • Use case: Searching for synergies, gaps

How can you contribute?

Do you have a favourite toolkit or are you responsible for one? Let us know!