Transdisciplinarity and three mindsets for sustainability in the age of cyber-physical systems

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems (CPS), such as collaborative robots, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles, are seen as decisive contributions to addressing many societal challenges. These systems have the power to provide solutions to cope with an aging population, address climate change, and improve issues of health, public safety and mobility. As a product of the fourth industrial revolution, these systems are currently inviting much interest. However, there are barriers that need to be considered and understood to be able to optimise the potential of these systems to support a more sustainable future. To this end, transdisciplinary skills and a combination of different mindsets are needed to be able to ask the right questions at the right time. There are several approaches that can help us to initiate constructing innovative, transformative, future-oriented and systematic ideas and questions. The three important approaches that are suggested in this article are systems mindset, design mindset and futuristic mindset. These mindsets combined with the transdisciplinary perspective – where different disciplines work jointly to create sustainable solutions not only for today but also for tomorrow – have the power to change the world. This article underlines the importance of transdisciplinarity, presents the three mindsets and illustrates a hypothetical use case on how to blend these three mindsets to enable creative work in the future's transdisciplinary world for human-centred and sustainable future.