“Let’s be generous!”

As a comprehensive university with the most extensive and diverse range of academic programs in Switzerland, UZH provides excellent conditions to facilitate interdisciplinary and flexible educational pathways. UZH aims to make the most of this potential. Following the establishment of the one-of-a-kind School for Transdisciplinary Studies in 2021 and after becoming a member of the Una Europa interdisciplinary university alliance in 2022, the university has now taken another significant step in this direction. The Executive Board of the University and the faculties have agreed to prioritize interdisciplinary courses, simplify the transfer of credit for studies completed elsewhere, and facilitate cross-faculty studies. This means that UZH now has improved conditions for future-oriented teaching, allowing students to make the most of the diverse disciplines on offer and achieve their individual study goals in a flexible way. 

Why is fostering interdisciplinarity in teaching such a key priority for UZH?
Gabriele Siegert: There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, as a society we are confronting complex challenges like climate change and digital transformation. These issues cannot be addressed from the perspective of one field alone – they demand a multidimensional approach, which requires interdisciplinary thinking.
The coronavirus pandemic is a prime example of this: It wasn’t just about medical issues, but also about social behavior, political decision-making, economic consequences and cultural dynamics. Our goal is to respond to multi-layered challenges of this kind with an equally multi-layered curriculum.
Secondly, scientific knowledge is expanding at a rapid pace while also being in a state of flux. This makes it increasingly important for students to learn how to recognize connections, incorporate different perspectives and take a flexible approach to thinking.

What long-term goals is UZH pursuing by strengthening its interdisciplinary and cross-faculty programs?
Siegert: A strong foundation in specific subjects remains crucial – traditional disciplines will still form the core of what we teach. At the same time, it should become easier and more commonplace for all students to engage with different academic perspectives and develop skills that transcend individual fields.
There doesn’t need to be the same level of interdisciplinarity in every study program; it’s fine to have some variance here. What’s important is that students from all subjects and faculties have the chance to incorporate interdisciplinary elements into their studies.

Why should students pursue an interdisciplinary study program?
Siegert: Our students will later work in professions that in some cases don’t even exist yet. The job market and its requirements are changing rapidly. That’s why we need to allow students to cultivate skills like flexibility and problem-solving. These are the very skills that interdisciplinary approaches promote.

Katharina Michaelowa: Combining various academic approaches broadens horizons, increases intellectual agility, fosters creativity and trains critical thinking. It requires engaging with new issues and dealing with unfamiliar viewpoints.

Nick Netzer: When you learn to engage with perspectives from different fields, you also start to question your own point of view. You recognize the limitations and implicit assumptions of your own discipline and develop a deeper understanding of your field in the process.

How high is the demand for interdisciplinary programs?
Netzer: There is noticeable interest in interdisciplinarity, which is amplified by programs like the School for Transdisciplinary Studies and the Digital Society Initiative. It’s important to boost the visibility of interdisciplinary formats for students in all fields.

Michaelowa: This depends heavily on the profile of the individual student. Not everyone wants to study in a 100% interdisciplinary Master’s or Bachelor’s program. This makes it even more important that we offer a wide array of formats and combinations – bigger and smaller programs, closely linked or only loosely connected. That’s how we can best accommodate the various needs of the student body.

How big is the spectrum of interdisciplinary offerings at UZH today?
Siegert: The range is extensive, spanning from hands-on future skills courses to public lecture series and interdisciplinary study programs such as Biodiversity, Evolutionary Linguistics and the DSI minor program in Digital Skills.

Netzer: Even within traditional disciplines, instructors teach interdisciplinary approaches. The impetus for this frequently comes from research, where interdisciplinary methods are more common than in teaching.

Michaelowa: The range of disciplines UZH offers is unique in Switzerland. It’s well worth making this tremendous potential more accessible to students through interdisciplinary study programs.

Over the past few years, UZH has undertaken significant measures to strategically strengthen interdisciplinary teaching. What’s the current status here?
Siegert: The School for Transdisciplinary Studies was established in 2021, and since 2022, as part of our membership in Una Europa, we have been working on developing joint interdisciplinary Bachelor programs that are available to our own students as well as those from our partner universities. We took another step last year: the Executive Board and the faculties agreed to give higher priority to interdisciplinary courses and to simplify recognition of credits earned outside of their own faculty.
 

Katharina Michaelowa, what’s your take on this as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences? 
Michaelowa: I very much welcome these developments. They provide clarity and establish incentives for instructors to commit to interdisciplinary teaching. Until now, some instructors were unclear about whether and how interdisciplinary teaching would be credited, which sometimes slowed down the implementation of good ideas. That makes it all the more important that interdisciplinary activities are now being explicitly encouraged. However, I would also advocate for more extensive regulations here.

In what regard?
Michaelowa: In my opinion, we need more binding university-wide rules for structuring study programs and modules. UZH’s interdisciplinary offerings are extensive but not yet accessible enough. Many students, for example, cannot attend certain interdisciplinary classes that would interest them because they have too few options to choose from in their program.

Siegert: That’s an important point. In some study programs, the core component is so extensive that there’s very little flexibility for interdisciplinary perspectives – for example in human medicine, veterinary medicine and law. But cross-disciplinary abilities like communication skills, social understanding and ethical reflection are important in these fields as well. 

Are there additional barriers?
Siegert: Another hurdle is that major and minor programs aren’t structured the same in all faculties. A Bachelor’s degree program requires the completion of 180 ECTS. If a major consists of 150 ECTS, there is room for a 30 ECTS minor. In some faculties, though, it’s primarily 120 ECTS majors and 60 ECTS minors that are offered. This results in some combinations being structurally impossible to implement – even though they would make sense from a content perspective. 

Michaelowa: I believe more binding regulations at the university level would help to dismantle precisely these kinds of structural barriers.

Nick Netzer, as Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, how effective do you find these agreements?
Netzer: The agreements have noticeably improved the situation. They represent a clear commitment to interdisciplinarity, demonstrate appreciation for instructors and create a solid foundation for advancing interdisciplinary teaching. But there is still work to do. For each new offering, the faculties have to determine whether and how it can be integrated into the elective or core elective parts of the program. There are also cross-faculty issues that have to be considered in each individual case, which requires consultation with other deans of studies as well as the Education and Student Affairs Commission. If we are to strengthen interdisciplinary teaching, we need more than shared rules; we also require trust between faculties.

Michaelowa: I concur. We should view teaching at UZH more as a collective responsibility. To encourage interdisciplinary exchange, we should acknowledge students’ and instructors’ contributions even when they are achieved outside their own institute or faculty. As the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, we have implemented a new teaching course load indicator that can be used across institutes and faculties. This allows us to allocate resources more fairly when it comes to interdisciplinary teaching.
 

What else can the faculties do to strengthen their interdisciplinary course offerings?
Netzer: At the faculties, we are currently working on several fronts to encourage interdisciplinary and interfaculty teaching – via new minor programs and what we call liberal arts options. At the same time, we are examining the concrete impact of increased flexibility: Which offerings would students actually make use of? Would the student flows be one-sided or more balanced? And what implications would this have for teacher-student ratios, teaching workloads and resource distribution? In order to plan ahead, we should be able to thoroughly answer these questions. 

What will happen next? 
Siegert: Instructors at UZH are already building impressive interdisciplinary courses and programs. We want as many students as possible to benefit from these offers. The agreements we achieved in this area last year now need to be implemented: it’s now about simplifying the planning and execution of interdisciplinary courses, improving their integration into existing structures and ensuring they can be properly credited. For example, consistent cross-listing is crucial, or in other words, interdisciplinary offerings should be visible for students when they sign up for modules. Also, when planning new courses, we need to closely monitor the interest and demand from students. This is the only way we can allocate the necessary resources in good time.
In the long run, we are also examining how the structures of study programs could be aligned better so that they become more flexible. So it requires a lot of small steps – which, taken together, will help us advance considerably.

Gabriele Siegert, in your view, what in particular should faculties and institutes keep in mind if they want to enhance interdisciplinary teaching at UZH?
Siegert: If we wish to continue building interdisciplinary teaching at UZH, it will require a collective effort beyond the confines of any one faculty or field. My plea is: Let’s be generous when crediting work that is carried out in other faculties. And let’s leave enough room in study programs for flexible and accessible elective and core elective areas so that we can open up interdisciplinary courses to as many students as possible.