Edition 2025
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Fifth edition (2025): Integration scientific knowledge and producing actionable scientific knowledge through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research
The fifth edition of the conference on inter- and transdisciplinary research for sustainable development was held on Friday, November 21, 2025, in Louvain-la-Neuve. This conference was organised in partnership with the European university alliance Circle U.
The conference on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research for sustainable development brings together researchers from the member universities of the Circle U alliance.
More than thirty contributions were presented across four distinct sessions. They reflect the diversity of scientific and methodological approaches mobilized around sustainability issues. They explore a wide range of themes, including agroecological and food system transitions, participatory and digital governance, energy transition, planetary health, urban resilience, as well as social and environmental justice.
Beyond the presentation of concrete research, the conference also provided an opportunity to engage in broader discussions on the conditions for the emergence and recognition of transdisciplinary research within academia.
Such approaches, by fostering close connections between science, society, and action, challenge the institutional, epistemological, and methodological frameworks of academic research. They raise new ethical, organizational, and valorization-related issues, inviting a rethinking of modes of collaboration, evaluation criteria, forms of publication, and training frameworks.
