About Us

Our Vision

The TdLab is a place where students, teachers, researchers, and other societal actors collaboratively define and tackle the complexities of sustainable development to respect environmental limits and uphold social justice for present and future generations.

Our Mission

The TdLab conceptualizes and tests educational and research approaches to tackle complexities of sustainable development.

  • We enable students to experience and tackle real-world problems in the context of sustainable development through collaborative and reflective teaching.
  • We give students freedom and responsibility to explore and experience interactive ways of doing methodologically sound research.
  • We support teaching that moves beyond the classroom. We seek to strengthen intra- and cross-departmental teaching collaboration and build bridges within D-USYS and the ETH.
  • We support and develop research projects by providing conceptual input, tools and critical reflection on how to run inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.
  • We integrate knowledge and values from different scientific perspectives, as well as from other societal actors. We propose key expertise in problem framing and knowledge integration.

While sound analysis of the problem at hand will remain paramount, attention has also increasingly been given to developing and implementing solutions (developing transformation knowledge).

Background

The TdLab was founded in 2013, under the initiative of former D-USYS dean Prof. Dr. Peter Edwards. He was convinced that the department would gain from having an in-house lab to strengthen the interface between science and society. The TdLab was envisioned as group that would develop teaching, conduct research, and provide transdisciplinary services for the rest of the department. The lab was launched for an initial three-year pilot in 2013 and officially approved by the department in 2016.

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