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The SCOOP Transdisciplinary PhD programme

A successful SCOOP PhD graduate is one who

  • Is confident in defining, applying and defending disciplinary insights from at least two disciplinary fields in addressing a social issue  related to sustainable co-operation.
  • Is able to be critical of the insights they are able to provide by highlighting potential gaps in the transdisciplinary approach that she has taken in her project.
  • Is able to engage with and explore potential solutions to ethical dilemmas when managing complex research projects.
  • Is able to transfer own disciplinary insights to non-disciplinary experts and also translate non-disciplinary expertise to their own projects.
  • has an acute understanding of the historical background of the social issues they study.

To achieve these learning outcomes, we have created a three course, three year PhD programme that complement the independent research projects that SCOOP PhD students undertake.

The SCOOP TDPP consists of three courses that roughly correspond to the year of the PhD research studentship. This course program is further complemented by regular meetings of the four work packages (each project is part of at least one work package), during which participants present and discuss their work, as well as annual master classes that take place during the yearly SCOOP conference.

Each year of the TDPP  corresponds to one course that a SCOOP PhD student will need to take. That is, first year PhD students will undertake course 1, second year PhD students will undertake course 2 and third year PhD students will undertake course 3.  Each of these courses will contain between 4 and 6 workshops that will take place within that academic year.

Course 1: The SCOOP Approach

The first course, The SCOOP Approach, gives a general overview over the SCOOP approach. It consists of six course days. The emphasis of each course day is to give general overviews over the key pillars of our analytical framework. We start with an introductory overview over the framework itself (workshop 1). The following three course days are dedicated to an in-depth inquiry into the phenomenon of sustainable cooperation, its key dimensions (stability and value creation) and current institutional and behavioral explanations. The stability dimension of sustainable cooperation, in particular different threats to sustainable cooperation are the focus of workshop 2. The value-dimension of sustainable cooperation, including intended and unintended outcomes of cooperative endeavors are the topic of workshop 3. This is followed by an overview over current theories of (sustainable) cooperation, in particular institutional and behavioral theories (workshop 4). Subsequently, we focus on the policy domains work, care, and inclusion, in order to illustrate transdisciplinary diagnoses of resilience problems (workshop 5). We conclude with an inquiry the challenges involved when crossing disciplinary boundaries (workshop 6). Course 1 information.

Course 2: SCOOP Analysis and Applications

The second course, SCOOP Analysis and Applications, consists of five course days, three of which are mandatory. This part provides an analytical strategy to bridge the macro-micro divide in models of sustainable cooperation, and illustrates how this strategy can be applied to the transdisciplinary study of resilience problems in the policy domains of work, care, and inclusion. It starts with a masterclass by a foreign scholar (workshop 7), as part of a pre-conference training event. This is followed by training days on social mechanism reasoning to bridge the macro-micro divide (workshop 8), and on the meso-level of organizations, communities and families (workshop 9). Three subsequent course days cover applications of this strategy to the domains of work, care, and inclusion, respectively. These are referred to as work package meetings. Participants are expected to attend at least one of these work package meetings on domain specific applications. Course 2 information. 

Course 3: Transdisciplinarity in Practice

The third and final course focuses on Transdisciplinarity in Practice. It consists of three training days. The first training day of course 3 addresses the communication cycle of conducting transdisciplinary research (workshop 10). The next workshop (workshop 11) teaches participants to identify the steps necessary to translate research findings into interventions and clearly define the added value of their academic analysis and research skills. In this final workshop, students evaluate existing policy briefs in light of evidence based policy making frameworks and analyze the challenges related to the design and implementation of transdisciplinary evidence based interventions and policies. Course 3 information.