From Knowing to Experiencing: Lessons from our Workshop on Power & Transformative Change in ITD Collaborations

On 6 February 2026, we welcomed a small group of researchers to Zürich for our workshop “Making Power Visible: Tools for Leveraging Transformative Change in and through Inter- and Transdisciplinary Collaborations.” Hosted at “Langstrasse 200”, the full-day workshop brought together participants with a shared interest in transformative change and inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research and practice.

From the beginning, the atmosphere was open, curious, and highly engaged. After a short introduction, we quickly moved into the practical core of the workshop: working hands-on with three Critical Social Science (CSS) Literacy Tools currently being developed within our Translating Transformations project. These tools are designed to help make power structures and relations visible and to support more critical and equitable approaches to transformative change.

From Theory to Experience

Across the day, participants worked with three different tools:

• The Power in Change (morning session)

• The Power of Assumptions (early afternoon)

• The Power of Process (afternoon session)

Rather than primarily discussing concepts, the workshop deliberately emphasized active experience. Through simple but carefully structured exercises, participants were invited to experience how power is at play in ITD research and how it shapes assumptions, knowledge and collaboration processes.

What the Feedback Told Us

The pre- and post-assessments showed only moderate shifts in participants’ perspectives. Importantly, this was not perceived as a shortcoming of the workshop. Rather, it reflected the advanced starting point of the group: all participants were experts in the field, most were already familiar with the concept of transformative change, and they placed strong value on critical reflection and on the role of power within ITD collaborations.

At the same time, the feedback highlighted several meaningful outcomes: For some participants, the workshop reshaped their understanding of transformative change. Many reported that it influenced how they think about transformative change in their own work, even if their core values were already aligned.

One key insight stood out clearly: actively experiencing concepts related to power can be transformative in itself, even for expert audiences. Although participants entered the workshop with a high level of expertise and prior awareness of power structures in ITD projects, many emphasized that engaging in the exercises generated new insights that went beyond what theoretical discussion alone could achieve. Translating abstract concepts into embodied, collective experiences made them more tangible—and, as a result, more impactful.

In addition, the feedback sensitized us to an important challenge regarding accessibility. From participants’ perspectives, we learned that some discussion examples embedded in our tools—such as those using expert terms like biodiversity offsets or drawing on cases like bringing nature into the city—can require substantial domain-specific knowledge. For participants with less background in these areas, this may feel intimidating or even exclusionary. We are taking this feedback seriously and are actively considering how to better account for different levels of prior knowledge, so that our tools remain inclusive and adaptable across diverse audiences and contexts.

From Workshop to Toolbox

By raising critical questions and pointing out unclarities, participants actively challenged the tools we were testing. This constructive engagement was a central part of the workshop and provided essential input for further refinement. The hands-on use of the tools, combined with open feedback and critical perspectives, is invaluable for strengthening the clarity, accessibility, and impact of the exercises.

The insights and feedback from this day are directly feeding back into the ongoing development of our CSS Literacy Tools. The newly developed tools will be refined and added as they are finalized to the open source toolbox on our website.

We greatly enjoyed the workshop and would like to thank all participants for their openness, critical engagement, and thoughtful contributions throughout the day.