2024 Global Summit: Transdisciplinary & Transnational Research to Solve Global Grand Challenges

At the beginning of this month, the 2024 Global Summit on Graduate Education convened at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico, and was co-hosted with Consejo Mexicano de Estudios de Posgrado A.C. (COMEPO). With the support of Educational Testing Service (ETS), graduate leaders from 15 countries met to build consensus around guiding principles for conducting transdisciplinary and transnational research to solve global grand challenges.

While keeping transdisciplinary and transnational research in focus simultaneously was a challenge, given the scope of each of these topics, delegates agreed that both transdisciplinary and transnationality were important components of solving problems at the scale of global grand challenges.

Transdisciplinary and transnational research will be vital in solving challenges like climate change, water management, human migration, and other issues that will define our times. For transdisciplinary research to succeed, however, it needs to be supported and recognized within a university system that is currently ordered by disciplines. Transnational research requires international collaboration between scholars and the ability to create projects that are not limited to a single national perspective or approach.

The full Summit principles and action agenda will be released soon. If you are interested in learning more, join us at the Annual Meeting for the session titled, “Transdisciplinary and Transnational Research: Toward Solving Global Challenges,” featuring the work done at this year’s Global Summit attendees.

Next year’s Global Summit will be held from September 28-30 at the University of Quebec, Quebec City, Canada, in partnership with the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies. The topic will be, “AI and Emerging Tech to Support Student Success.”