The world is currently grappling with a myriad of challenges such as unemployment, poverty, inequality, violent crimes and HIV and AIDS. These challenges exist on multiple levels and are viewed from different perspectives by scholars coming from diverse disciplines, hence they demand to be tackled using a transdisciplinary approach. As part of the University of Fort Hare’s radical reconstruction of its intellectual project, the Centre for Transdisciplinary Studies (CTS) was established to facilitate and promote a wider intellectual engagement and research amongst academics and students across different disciplines. This research thus seeks to reconceptualise CTS’ objectives through exploring the academics’ understanding of transdisciplinarity, its role, transformative potential and challenges at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. The research was conducted through qualitative semi-structured interviews with the university’s academic staff members representing faculties of health, law, social sciences and humanities, management and commerce, science and agriculture, education and the Teaching and Learning Centre. Data were analysed by thematic data analysis. The findings of the study concluded that there was no consensus amongst academics on the definition of transdisciplinarity. Academics defined it as either the merging or collaboration of disciplines. Some used the term interchangeably with interdisciplinarity and multi-disciplinarity. The findings positioned the role of CTS as that of raising transdisciplinary awareness and coordinating transdisciplinary activities across different disciplines in the university. The potential of transdisciplinarity includes collaborative research, teaching and learning and dialogue across the university. Challenges of transdisciplinarity proved to be first understanding the concept itself, foundations of mono-disciplinarity which promote departmental isolations, disciplinary comfort zones, heterogeneity of the university and academics’ busy schedules. In spite of the challenges of transdisciplinarity, participants indicated a willingness to engage in transdisciplinary activities.

中文翻译：

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反思哈尔斯堡大学跨学科的作用，潜力和挑战

当前，世界正面临着众多挑战，例如失业，贫困，不平等，暴力犯罪以及艾滋病毒和艾滋病。这些挑战存在于多个层面，来自不同学科的学者从不同角度进行了审视，因此要求采用跨学科的方法来应对。作为Fort Hare大学对其智力项目进行的彻底重建的一部分，建立了跨学科研究中心（CTS），以促进和促进不同学科的学者和学生之间更广泛的智力参与和研究。因此，本研究旨在通过探索学者对南非哈雷堡大学对跨学科性，其作用，变革潜力和挑战的理解来重新概念化CTS的目标。该研究是通过对大学的学术人员进行定性半结构化访谈进行的，这些人员代表了卫生，法律，社会科学与人文，管理与商业，科学与农业，教育和教学中心等学院。通过专题数据分析对数据进行分析。研究结果得出结论，学者们对跨学科性的定义没有共识。学术界将其定义为学科的合并或协作。有些人在跨学科和多学科之间互换使用该术语。研究结果将CTS的作用定位为提高跨学科认识并协调大学中不同学科的跨学科活动。跨学科的潜力包括整个大学的合作研究，教学和对话。事实证明，跨学科的挑战是首先要理解概念本身，促进学科隔离，学科舒适区，大学的异质性和学者繁忙的日程安排的单一学科的基础。尽管存在跨学科挑战，但与会者表示愿意参加跨学科活动。