CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has awarded $156,000 in funding to two groundbreaking projects through its newly established Transdisciplinary Global South Community-Based Learning Program Grant.
This initiative, which is part of the university's Vision 2030 Global Strategy, aims to promote innovative transdisciplinary education abroad experiences in the Global South.
The grant supports not only the implementation costs for the two projects, but also the deeper goal of encouraging faculty and students to collaborate directly with the communities their work impacts.
A Two-Year Journey of Engagement
The two projects selected for funding are "Coffee, Chemistry, and the Community" and "Place Making and Rural Tourism in China.”
Each project will be developed over two years and focus primarily on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as key issues affecting communities in the Global South.
In the first year, project teams will engage in professional development on how to effectively facilitate community based global learning courses as well as engage and recruit local stakeholders in Panama and China where their activities will take place.
The second year will see these teams working on-site, embedding themselves in the communities, and collaborating with local partners to co-create solutions.
According to the grant guidelines, the goal is to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with community members, where all parties contribute to and shape the project implementation process.
The idea is to engage stakeholders not merely as recipients, but as co-designers and equal participants.
Defining Transdisciplinary Work
The program kicked off in May 2024 with a training day hosted by Illinois International, the office that administers the grant.
This session was designed to introduce participants to the concept of transdisciplinary work—a term often confused with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches.
Leading the session was Mary Price, director of teaching and learning at The Forum on Education Abroad.
Price said that while interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work involves combining expertise from different fields, “transdisciplinary work goes further by integrating knowledge from academic disciplines in tandem with practice-specific knowledge from practitioners and the knowledge and relationships borne out of the lived experiences of community stakeholders.”
To clarify further, Price defined multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary work. She said in multidisciplinary work there is a recognition that understanding or addressing the problem or question is enhanced when one more than one disciplinary lens is applied; each discipline offers its take on the problem/question and each works within the confines of its theories/methods.
She also said multidisciplinary work tends to center academic expertise alone.
On the other hand, she said interdisciplinary approaches often involve faculty from different disciplines working on a problem and considering how their disciplinary methods or lenses can tackle different dimensions of the problem or question.
“There is more effort investing in working across theories and methods,” Price said. “But there’s still a tendency to rely on academic expertise alone.”
However, she said transdisciplinary approaches begin with the assumption that the identifying, investigating, and responding to the problem, issue, or aspiration can't be accomplished within the confines of any field.
“The problem, question or aspiration defies the limits of any discipline,” she said. “Transdisciplinary approaches invite novel, theoretical, and methodological approaches and when practitioner and community ways of knowing are validated, transdisciplinary approaches create opportunities for community representations to share in the work as co-inquirers or co-researchers as opposed to narrow roles of beneficiary or participant.”
Overall, Price emphasized the importance of academics developing "intellectual humility,” which is the capacity to recognize and embrace the limits of one’s knowledge and beliefs as part of pursuing deeper knowledge, truth or understanding. This includes understanding that academic expertise may offer only part of the solution.
And she said when working with communities, part of intellectual humility is cultural humility, which refers to a person’s ability to discern and examine the biases and cultural standpoints that inform their work and relationships.
Therefore, by working directly with community members, faculty, students, and those community members can gain valuable insights that enrich and transform their understanding of the issues, strengthen the quality of research as well as strengthen community trust in the findings.
A Focus on Equity and Inclusion
Price said transdisciplinary work also demands a focus on equity.
This approach ensures that all stakeholders, including community members, have an equal voice in the design and implementation process.
She contrasted this approach with traditional education abroad models, where community partners may be consulted but are rarely engaged as co-creators of the program.
Transdisciplinary, community based global learning, by contrast, values and incorporates the knowledge and experience of all participants.
The Grant Program’s Broader Vision
Luis Canales, associate provost for Illinois International, said this work extends far beyond traditional study abroad programs and highlighted that this grant program was designed to align with the goals of Vision 2030, as well as the university’s strategic framework.
He explained that by fostering international partnerships with communities in the Global South, the program seeks to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
"Whether it’s a global health crisis or climate change, these problems require collaboration from multiple perspectives," Canales said. "This grant encourages not only academic collaboration but also deep, sustained mutually beneficial partnerships with the communities where these projects take place."
On-the-Ground Projects in the Global South
One of the grant-funded projects, "Place Making and Rural Tourism in China," will involve Illinois students working with the residents of Xihu Village in Jingdezhen, China.
Together, they will design tourism development strategies, way-finding plans, and community-driven architectural solutions tailored to local needs.
The aim is to create sustainable development that benefits both residents and visitors. Program leaders are Wei Zhao (School of Architecture), Sharon Suiwen Zou (Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism), and Molly C. Briggs (School of Art and Design).
The second project, "Coffee, Chemistry, and the Community," will bring students to coffee-growing regions in Panama (Chiriqui Province), where they will work alongside local farmers to understand the impact of climate change on coffee crops and explore ways to improve farming conditions.
By engaging with coffee producers and workers, the students will help develop strategies that support both environmental sustainability and community well-being.
Program leaders are Jose Andino (Chemistry), James Dalling (Biology), Elvira de Mejia (Food Science and Human Nutrition), Tina Huang (Chemistry), Ann-Perry Witmer (Carl Illinois College of Medicine), Mariana Ortega (La Casa Cultural Latina), and Yun Shi (International Education).
Coffee farm partnerships have been developed with Finca La Esmeralda and Finca Hartmann.
A Commitment to Transformative Learning
Canales said that the university's commitment to transformative learning experiences must include genuine community engagement.
"When we co-create learning experiences with local communities, we move beyond our biases and engage at the deepest level," he said.
This grant program, one of three funded by the Office of the Provost under the Vision 2030 initiative, represents Illinois’ dedication to fostering global collaboration, equity, and sustainable development through education.
For more information on this grant program and others please visit https://publish.illinois.edu/global-strategy/funding-initiatives/.
The Global Communication staff can be reached at iip-globalcom@illinois.edu.
Luis Canales, associate provost for Illinois International, contributed to the writing of this story.
Analicia Haynes, storyteller and social media specialist for Illinois International, contributed to the writing and reporting of this story.