Transdisciplinary Research on Indoor Environment and Health as a Social Process

Abstract

Although issues concerning indoor environments and their interaction with humans span many disciplines, such as aerosol technology, environmental psychology, health, and building physics, they are often studied separately. This study describes a research project with the transdisciplinary aim of bridging such disciplinary boundaries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the twelve project members to explore their understanding of transdisciplinarity regarding the conceptual as well as social aspects of collective learning and leadership and the measures taken to achieve this. The interviews were coded in NVivo (QSR International, Doncaster, Australia), which was used to identify themes concerning notions associated with transdisciplinarity, collective leadership, collective intelligence, and learning. A shared understanding of transdisciplinarity meant that the researchers transcended their disciplinary boundaries by moving into each other’s fields. This collective learning process was facilitated by introductory lectures on each other’s fields, contributing to collective leadership and a safe atmosphere. We argue that a transdisciplinary approach is appropriate in order to address indoor environment issues as well other complex problems, for which additional time and resources should be allocated for individual and collective learning processes.