Transdisciplinarity is not a new concept for the ENHANCE Alliance. Across its university network, ENHANCE has long recognised the approach as a core driver of innovation in education and research, embedding it into the Alliance's transformation agenda to help institutions better engage with society, address sustainability challenges, and collaborate beyond the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. Through its ENHANCERIA project phase, ENHANCE developed pathways, toolboxes, and frameworks to support member universities in institutionalising these approaches. Now, with ENHANCE+, that work continues and deepens.
On 19 May 2026, Gdańsk University of Technology took a significant step in this ongoing journey. Under the organisation by Dr Christian Jungnickel within the ENHANCE Alliance framework — with support from the Polish National Agency for academic exchange NAWA — a panel discussion and strategic workshop brought together international expertise to ask a pressing question: How can the ENHANCE Alliance serve as a catalyst for institutional transformation to establish transdisciplinarity as a research and education mode at technical universities?
International Expertise Meets Local Reality
The event drew on two internationally recognised scholars in transdisciplinary research: PD Dr Bianca Vienni-Baptista (ETH Zurich) and Dr Kathrin Wieck (TU Berlin) — both active contributors to ENHANCE's work in the field. Their perspectives illuminated both the conceptual foundations and the institutional dimensions of transdisciplinarity, collaborative science, and systems-oriented approaches to research and education. From Gdańsk Tech, Bartosz Wiśniewski, Ewa Lechman, and Jacek Ryl engaged with these perspectives through the lens of their own university system — its structures, its culture, and its challenges.
This pairing of external expertise with internal institutional knowledge is precisely the kind of cross-border dialogue that ENHANCE is built to enable.
Key Themes: Structures, Competencies, and Societal Relevance
The discussions surfaced themes that resonate far beyond Gdańsk. Participants highlighted structural barriers to collaboration within current academic systems — and the need to dismantle them deliberately. They examined the growing importance of collaborative competencies within higher education institutions and the role of integrative and transdisciplinary approaches in strengthening universities' societal impact, responsiveness, and long-term adaptability.
Crucially, the conversations were framed against the backdrop of today's grand societal challenges and interwoven crises. Facing these complex, "wicked problems" requires more than disciplinary expertise: it demands shared languages, common purposes, and institutional spaces where researchers can develop effective, collaborative problem solutions. The discussions also noted the increasing centrality of such competencies within European research and innovation frameworks, including Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.
Concrete Steps Towards Institutionalisation
What distinguished this event was its orientation toward action. Several concrete outcomes emerged:
Establishing a university-wide TD working group at Gdańsk University of Technology to sustain momentum and coordinate efforts
Mapping existing integrative activities and competencies across the institution to build on what already exists
Embedding collaborative competencies into project- and challenge-based courses
Developing institutional mechanisms that support integrative and socially responsive research practices
These steps are not isolated experiments. They are part of a broader process of institutional learning — and they open a replicable format for other ENHANCE universities to follow.
A Network That Makes This Possible
What made this event possible, and meaningful, is the ENHANCE cross-border network itself. As ENHANCE actively embeds transdisciplinarity across its collaboration — in teaching, research, and project work — events like this one translate Alliance-level ambition into institutional action at individual universities.
The dialogue opened at Gdańsk University of Technologyech represents a model: connecting the conceptual and institutional dimensions of transdisciplinarity, anchoring international knowledge exchange within local university systems, and producing tangible results. The ENHANCE+ project now carries this work forward, continuing to develop the structures, strategies, and support needed for technical universities across Europe to professionalise transdisciplinarity — and to make it last.
