Sustainable development must draw upon multiple disciplines. Research responds by launching platforms and groups crossing the borders between different fields of action and knowledge.
Research can thus be interdisciplinary, combining different disciplines around the same object of study.
It can also be transdisciplinary, combining different disciplines with the expertise of actors from business, civil society, or public authorities. In this type of research protocol, collaboration is established early in the process.
Louvain 4
To confront the human and environmental challenges facing society today and anticipate those of tomorrow, UCLouvain has launched a transversal research initiative: Louvain4. Concretely, these multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research platforms gather scientists from different backgrounds around a strategic societal issue in order to stimulate reflection, debate, and new collaborations. Each theme echoes one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals.
LPTransition
The goal of LPTransition, a research platform, is to explore paths towards the ecological and social transition of our societies from a transdisciplinary perspective, that is, in close collaboration with social actors and on the basis of the innovations they have initiated – an approach that allows the wider dissemination of research results within the various sectors of society through doctoral theses, research projects, or seminars.
Interdisciplinary Ecological Crisis Research Group (GRICE)
GRICE brings together UCLouvain researchers engaged with the ecological crisis and transition. One of its major objectives is to create bridges between theoretically or methodologically distant fields of research. Each seminar session therefore offers a triple-disciplinary perspective in order to generate an integrated vision capable of considering the complexity of the state of the ecology.
Be.Hive
This interdisciplinary chair brings together three universities (including UCLouvain), three hautes écoles, health care users and professionals, representatives of the public, and politicians. They combine their strengths, resources, knowledge, and research capacities to contribute to the development of an effective first line of aid and care in French-speaking Belgium.