Anne-Sophie Schaltegger

Research area

My research interests revolve around human culture, thinking and behaviour: how humans (inter)act, what social and cultural phenomena thereby are created and how the seemingly unique human capacities developed. A special interest lies in societal, collaborative and individual knowledge production processes. In my PhD, I investigate inter- and transdisciplinarity (ID/TD) under Bianca Vienni Baptista in the project Intersections as a member of the Cultural Studies of Science group. 

ID/TD knowledge production processes are assemblages of particular human behaviours and cultural negotiations. Human and cultural factors like the values we hold as individuals do not tend to receive much attention in processes of producing research, often due the desire to live up to the ideal of objectivity. In my research I will focus on the values that are involved in inter- and transdisciplinary research practices. I am interested in both the question of which values are being engaged, and in which phases, decisions and moments these values become important. These insights shall increase our understanding of how ID/TD research can be shaped to address societal challenges and policy needs more successfully. This will be especially important to solve a specific challenge to ID/TD: how to evaluate its quality and outputs most effectively? Common science evaluation processes and criteria fall short of some of the complexities and unique conditions which need to be accounted for in the case of ID and TD. By focusing on the values promoted in evaluation practices, too, disconnections between these and the values in research can be made explicit. On this foundation, an understanding can be build on how current evaluation mechanisms hinder successful inter- or transdisciplinary research projects and how these conditions can be improved.