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To prepare students to address complex sustainability issues, they need to be trained in inter- and transdisciplinarity. This paper aims to contribute to better understanding how to do this, by providing insight into design elements and strategies deployed in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability education.

A systematic literature search was conducted to select inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability programmes. Through deductive and inductive qualitative analysis, design elements and strategies were identified and defined.

Eleven inter- and transdisciplinary programmes were identified. A comprehensive overview of their design elements and strategies is provided. Moreover, three patterns emerged: students were often only involved in the execution, but not in the preparation and evaluation stages of projects, and thus not trained in these; many programmes relied on diverse student representation for interdisciplinary learning and did not explicitly train interdisciplinary integration; and the societal value of transdisciplinary collaboration received little attention in the evaluation of outcomes and impacts.

Follow-up research into the effectiveness of design elements and strategies for inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability education is needed, because the field seems to be understudied.

The comprehensive overview of design elements and strategies for inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability education holds the promise to inform design of novel programmes with similar ambitions. Moreover, the findings urge additional attention for explicitly training interdisciplinary integration and safeguarding the societal value of transdisciplinarity.

This review presents new insights into strategies and design elements for inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability education.

To properly address complex sustainability issues, higher education institutes (HEIs), such as universities, need to implement innovative educational programmes that adhere to transdisciplinary principles. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of how to do so across and beyond a university.

This study presents a module comprising two courses, the first of which centres on the identification of sustainability issues in student-led multi-actor dialogue sessions and the second on addressing those sustainability issues through interdisciplinary collaboration among master’s students who are at the same time also working on their own thesis. The authors conducted continuous evaluations during the first two pilot years, including community (partners), faculty and student perspectives.

The authors found that the module was successful in training students for inter- and transdisciplinarity. Moreover, high levels of commitment were observed from a diverse range of students and faculty across one HEI as well as positive responses from the community (partners) involved in the module. Further improvements of the module rely on active buy-in from programme directors and ensuring continuous collaboration throughout the co-creation process by streamlining the translation of the issues into manageable research projects with specific research questions.

This study provides inspiration and lessons on how to implement university-wide inter- and transdisciplinary module into higher education.

The module is innovative in combining university-wide and interdisciplinary learning with and transdisciplinary learning through long-term, co-creational collaboration within and beyond the university.