The stadsacademie is a collaboratory for transdisciplinary research and education on wicked, real world sustainability issues relevant to the city of Ghent and Ghent University. Through this collaboratory, Ghent University engages to develop more structured cooperation with the city in which it is embedded.
Acknowledging the specificity and wickedness of sustainability issues requires new ways of knowledge production and challenges traditional educational practices (i.e. The lack of an unambiguous scientific problem framing and clear-cut solutions is at odds with common conceptions of teaching and learning in terms of transferring reliable knowledge and acquiring specific skills and attitudes).
One key aspect in our approach is transdisciplinarity: the involvement of different scientific disciplines and non-academic actors into the research process in order to integrate and produce the best available knowledge and values, as well as create shared ownership to deal with wicked, real world sustainability issues. Through various research and educational activities, students, professors and researchers collaborate on specific issues with urban stakeholders among which policy makers, societal organisations, civil society organisations, citizen cooperatives, companies, artists, urban dwellers, etc. The so-called academic brain power and the expertise of ‘the operational field’ are used together to address issues of the city. Within a specific sustainability issue, we focus on (re)framing problems, defining new research questions, searching for innovative pathways, building future scenarios, developing experiments, etc. Different relevant situations and problems are explored in-depth and multiple perspectives are taken into account.
The stadsacademie creates synergies between education, research and services to society. It strives to (re)integrate and apply the formulated socially engaged answers in both scientific practices at Ghent University and societal practices in the City of Ghent.
Master thesis ateliers
A core activity of the Stadsacademie are its Master thesis ateliers, which are a collaborative trajectory of one academic year in which 4 to 8 master students and their supervisors from different disciplinary backgrounds concentrate on one specific urban wicked, real world sustainability issue and collaborate with non-academic actors aiming to explore and to impact upon that issue. The students focus their master thesis on one specific research question and methodology related to the key issue, and in line with the formal regulations of the educational program of the student. Beside the specific research focus, students are given a (light) common assignment in which a problem framing is worked out and written out together around the issue at hand. Multiple events are organised to stimulate exchange among the stakeholders: collective workshops, debates, lectures, field visits, etc. Students not only receive intensive guidance and unique input from different actors, but they are also confronted with different perspectives and concerns as well as with their own blind spots.
Several Master Thesis Ateliers have been running within the Stadsacademie, each with a specific focus: sustainable and urban food systems, urban diversity and social housing, circular economy, space for care and biodiversity.
In general, relevant and innovative insights and policy recommendations are formulated by the involved students and researchers. Actors involved experience the Master Thesis Ateliers as complex, but enriching processes. Additional outcomes vary, from stimulating societal and political debate on complex issues to exhibitions, research projects commissioned by the city of Ghent, to new collaborations with urban stakeholders.
More information:
- For more information about the philosophy and reflection on the concept of Master thesis ateliers: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10668-022-02657-0 (ENG)
- For more information about the current trajectories, sustainability themes dealt with and the output of the Stadsacademie’s research and educational activities: https://stadsacademie.be/trajecten/ (NL)
