Transdisciplinarity: Mission Impossible or Reality in Croatia?

I often encounter comments like "Transdisciplinarity is mission impossible!" However, here is another example that proves the opposite. I believe that we can also encourage successful examples of sustainable transdisciplinarity in Croatia, especially at the University of Zagreb. Imagine a physical location, such as an incubator for new technologies, where representatives of different scientific disciplines would act as ambassadors of their home faculties.

In such a space, everyday personal contact between scientists from different fields would enable exchanging information about project activities and collaboration on a completely new level. For example, medical experts could draw analogies, experiences or even concrete technological solutions from electrical engineering or chemistry fields. This exchange of ideas and technologies could result in previously unimaginable innovations within the boundaries of individual scientific disciplines. The process would involve brainstorming and fragmenting existing technologies in order to develop completely new solutions. Information and research results from such an incubator would then be distributed back to the home faculties and disciplines. Such a model would represent a disruptive organizational-infrastructural innovation, creating the prerequisites for researching and developing disruptive and radical innovations. These transdisciplinary innovations would not only have the potential for dynamic adoption and dissemination but would also bring long-term monetization, leaving the competition behind.

Once proven, the model could be replicated at other Croatian universities and ultimately become part of a national transdisciplinary scientific research platform with the support of the Government of the Republic of Croatia. Such an approach would enable significant momentum in technology transfer, benefiting the entire industry and society as a whole.

What does transdisciplinarity mean to you? How do you see it in the future of Croatian science and innovation?

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