International organizations

Transdisciplinarity-3 as the Emergence of Patterned Experience (Part II) (Part #6)

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The universe of some 20,000 international organizations, many with hundreds of specialized departments, is a major transdisciplinary challenge. There is much debate on the future form of world governance in response to the multitude of world problems that stubbornly refuse to respect the categories of conceptual disciplines. It is clear that past uni-disciplinary methodologies, and the programmes and institutions they have inspired, have been less than successful in constraining these problems. There has been little innovative learning in relation to interdisciplinary programmes -- although it has been easy to claim that interdisciplinarity was achieved when any cluster of disciplines was gathered together in its name.

Unfortunately, as with their national counterparts, international organizations are locked into traditional modes of hierarchical organization and departmental specialization. Efforts to break out of this mould through the use of networks have facilitated certain forms of communication but have not responded to the challenge of ensuring appropriate contact between social units with complementary but incompatible skills. Networks tend to become incestuous and 'flabby', designing out variety and the 'holding' of essential differences and tensions. Many have been consoled by the claim that praxis and concrete projects ('in the field') effectively resolved any challenges of interdisciplinary organization.

Ironically it is multinational corporations that have been more successful in experimenting with flexible organization and integration of work units -- facilitated however by the simplicity of their objective. The challenge of transdisciplinary organization remains to be articulated for international organizations. UNESCO is the intergovernmental organization with the principal mandate in this respect and its support for this Congress is to be welcomed.