TD GAME
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The TD game is designed to be used in workshops including transdisciplinary (TD) training activities. This game harnesses the power of storytelling to facilitate a shared understanding of TD practice and the challenges and opportunities in this space. It also identifies approaches proven to work that may be successfully replicated and adopted in different contexts, thereby advancing TD practices.
The TD game is a tool to start a conversation about TD practices in a group, workshop, or training activity. It might be used by a university professor teaching about TD practices, the coordinator of a new TD project about to start, or the facilitator of any networking and training program that leads to transdisciplinary practices. It is a pedagogical tool and suggested dynamics for talking about TD collectively. The TD Game can be used with groups new to or familiar with the TD approach. Variations for how the game might be adapted to these two audiences are provided in the instructions.
As a result of this game, participants will:
- Get to know each other and understand the experience they have already contributed as TD practitioners.
- Identify the challenges and opportunities they have faced when using a TD approach—or other forms of knowledge coproduction—and how they addressed them.
- Realize they have engaged in TD practices and feel more empowered as TD practitioners/researchers.
- Make the connection that their practices related to integrating non‑academic knowledge are TD science and acknowledge this concept as a space for capacity building and creativity.
Groups new to the TD framework will find that the game can spark a deeper understanding of the TD approach by touching on their previous experiences. The workshop dynamics can be used as a conversation starter, creating opportunities for further exploration.
Groups familiar with the TD framework will find that the game increases their chances of thinking deeper about the challenges and opportunities common to TD practice that could be leveraged in specific projects and cases—mainly when the game is used in the initial stages of a new TD project. The game can be used to develop specific strategies to help new TD projects thrive.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This game was developed by Laila Sandroni and Fany Ramos Quispe in the context of the Science Technology and Policy (STeP) Fellowship Program 2022 Conference hosted by the InterAmerican Institute for Global Change Research in Uruguay.
The initial text in the cards was developed using insights from the TD workshop at SRI in June 2022 and a “TD practices” survey conducted among Principal Investigators of Belmont Forum projects in August 2022 under the leadership of Fany Ramos Quispe. Both activities aimed to collaboratively establish a shared understanding and framework for TD research from practice by searching for the collective wisdom stemming from projects funded under the Belmont Forum.
The initial set of cards was later adapted for the IAI TD Training, the TD workshop at the AAAS 2023 conference, and the TD 101 workshop at SRI 2023, and it was enhanced according to the feedback provided in these workshops. The current version of the cards was edited by Ismet Mamnoon from Inclusive Innovation for the TD Coordination workshop hosted by the IAI and held in Helsinki in June 2023.
The game developers are extremely grateful to all participants in the pilot version of this game, and, especially, they are thankful for the insights provided by the PIs of Belmont Forum projects under implementation in 2022 and Generations 1 and 2 of the STeP Fellowship program.