Using STEAM Principles and Experiences to Critique and Enhance a Transdisciplinary Collaboration Framework

STEAM interdisciplinary collaborations are essential to address complex 21st-century challenges, as they can offer new ways of learning, knowing, and collaborating with more holistic perspectives on the world. Transdisciplinary problem framing and knowledge creation can furthermore benefit deep and applied learning and guide projects. However, setting up teams across academic disciplines and practices to achieve meaningful and effective outcomes is challenging, and a coherent framework and repeatable approach could aid in their success. Today, no framework for STEAM collaborations addresses the entire collaboration cycle between project partners from diverse academic disciplines and non-academic backgrounds to systematically achieve transdisciplinary knowledge creation. This study presents a STEAM evaluation of a general framework for conducting transdisciplinary research (TDR) in three phases: TDR initiation, TDR management, and transdisciplinary knowledge exchange. This STEAM evaluation was based on the researchers’ experience and network of STEAM research and recent projects. A particular focus in this paper is to share insights into the challenges faced by diverse disciplinary collaborations with engineering students and engineers in achieving transdisciplinarity and how a STEAM lens to a TDR framework may help to prepare for or overcome these challenges. The study is expected to contribute to the development of a comprehensive framework for STEAM collaborations that could be used by researchers and practitioners to achieve transdisciplinary knowledge creation, be that in their research or teaching.