Fostering multi-lateral knowledge networks of transdisciplinary studies to tackle global challenges

Project KNOTS links partners from five countries in Southeast Asia and Europe to address new challenges in a rapidly changing world. The project aims at establishing vibrant and dynamic knowledge networks of multi-lateral and transdisciplinary studies. The Consortium intends to develop and enhance transdisciplinary research and teaching methodologies within the topics migration, resource degradation, and social inequality.
The tackling of global challenges such as migration, social inequality, and sustainable resource utilization requires an international collaboration including new forms of knowledge production and circulation. We, therefore, deem it important to establish, on the one hand, a strong intra-academic cooperation between the Southeast Asian and European Partner Institutions and, on the other, foster an innovative collaboration with non-academic stakeholders in Thailand and Vietnam.
Through joint field trips, summer schools, and teaching sessions (whereby these activities feature yearly changing topics) as well as a transdisciplinary approach, the consortium develops inventive strategies of knowledge production and transfer. Build upon these activities we conceptualize qualitative, transdisciplinary teaching and research materials.
Furthermore we hope to establish long lasting academic cooperations and networks within Southeast Asia as well as between Europe and Southeast Asia and to increase the impact of transdisciplinary teaching in the relevant topics in order to initiate sustainable development processes in South East Asia and beyond.