No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Meeting the leadership challenges for interdisciplinary environmental research
Abstract
A leadership forum could hasten understanding of complex problems, thanks to a historic meet-up of research pioneers.
... NSF, 2020), presenting a challenging example where the focus of research were systems with two-way linkages (or feedbacks) between their natural and social components rather than a one way influence of natural system on human system or vice versa; the UK's Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) tackling global challenges via interdisciplinary research (Grieve and Mitchell, 2020); Australian funding of the Centre for Marine Socioecology, Blythe and Cvitanovic, 2020), and Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Platforms (LTSER) established in Europe in 2007 (Dick et al., 2018). Palmer (2018) suggests that if interdisciplinary leaders co-organise, they can exert a powerful mechanism to promote and expand such cross-discipline working through engagement with/lobbying funding agencies. International activities such as the UN Ocean Decade, as well as the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and the UN's seventeen Sustainable Development Goals present opportunities for establishing highprofile UN-endorsed networks on socio-oceanography that may fulfil this role. ...
... Although research funding opportunities that integrate natural and social sciences are beginning to emerge (e.g. Palmer, 2018, and, for instance, the UKRI funded Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources (SMMR) programme), funding models still largely favour single discipline funding (e.g. van Putten et al., 2021). ...
Marine natural sciences have been instrumental in helping society understand how ocean systems operate and the threats they face. However, there is a growing realisation that the societal challenges related to the marine environment can only be addressed through more effective integration with all aspects of social sciences. Nevertheless, to date, social sciences remain insufficiently integrated into marine research. Recognising historical weaknesses and drawing on the authors’ own experience of interdisciplinary research, albeit writing primarily from a natural marine science perspective, we propose a series of steps to promote integrated marine research inclusive of strong social science. We suggest that changing the perspectives and attitudes of natural scientists is key. The inherent interconnectivity between the ocean and society ensures that nearly everything we do in the marine natural sciences has the potential to influence and, perhaps address, ongoing and future societal challenges. Consequently, a key challenge for natural scientists is to recognise and communicate this in an accessible manner outside their own disciplines. To attempt to address these issues, we introduce the concept of “Socio-oceanography” which we define as an area of research that takes a “whole system” approach to the marine environment. It focuses on the challenges which require advancement of both natural and social science components, especially on those where the feedbacks between social and natural components are beginning to emerge. Here, we discuss its scope, challenges to its effective application and key steps to catalyse interdisciplinary approaches using this concept.
... Interdisciplinary collaborations with mathematicians and statisticians are an invaluable solution to this lack of knowledge. However, careful communication must be maintained between collaborators to make sure the original biological question does not become lost in the details (Bak-Maier and Inger, 2007;Palmer, 2018;Kluger and Bartzke, 2020). Biologists are often competent users of specific programs that model processes of interest with a general understanding of how these models relate to others, yet knowledge gaps remain that can lead to the misinterpretation of the model or a lack of knowledge of field standards for applying certain formalisms. ...
... Choosing the form of the equations will impose assumptions on the result that should not be forgotten when interpreting the solution (see Case Studies for examples of valid and overstretching conclusions). For a classically trained plant biologist, this is a great opportunity to explore establishing an interdisciplinary (Palmer, 2018) collaboration or further mathematical training (Bak-Maier and Inger, 2007;Kluger and Bartzke, 2020). ...
Modeling has become a popular tool for inquiry and discovery across biological disciplines. Models allow biologists to probe complex questions and to guide experimentation. Modeling literacy among biologists, however, has not always kept pace with the rise in popularity of these techniques and the relevant advances in modeling theory. The result is a lack of understanding that inhibits communication and ultimately, progress in data gathering and analysis. In an effort to help bridge this gap, we present a blueprint that will empower biologists to interrogate and apply models in their field. We demonstrate the applicability of this blueprint in two case studies from distinct subdisciplines of biology; developmental-biomechanics and evolutionary biology. The models used in these fields vary from summarizing dynamical mechanisms to making statistical inferences, demonstrating the breadth of the utility of models to explore biological phenomena.
... Similarly, a recent assessment of an interdisciplinary research team in Sweden, whose core goal is to link scientific knowledge to action to support the sustainable management of the Baltic Sea, identified the lack of suitable metrics as a key barrier to achieving tangible impacts on policy and practice (Cvitanovic et al., 2018a). Yet, despite widespread recognition of the need for new impact-based performance metrics, measuring interdisciplinary impact remains problematic (Palmer, 2018). This is associated with the ambiguity associated in defining what actually constitutes "impact" outside of the academy, the long time-lags between knowledge production and impact (i.e., often greater than 10 years), and the non-linear and multicasual pathways by which impact can occur (Molas-Gallart et al., 2000;Chowdhury et al., 2016;Reed et al., 2018). ...
... Participants also highlighted the need for innovative funding models that support relationship building and provide opportunities for learning. Several respondents pointed to the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) as a useful model, which employs an innovative funding model that supports newly formed collaborative teams to work together at its facility in the US to tackle complex challenges in novel ways (Palmer, 2018). We do, however, note that even funding schemes like these, designed to support interdisciplinary research, can be challenging to obtain as highlighted earlier. ...
To generate innovative solutions for marine sustainability challenges, scientists, policymakers, and funders are increasingly calling for interdisciplinary research that transcends disciplinary boundaries. However, challenges associated with doing interdisciplinary research persist and undermine progress toward tackling the complex challenges faced by marine social-ecological systems. One barrier for engaging in effective interdisciplinary research is a lack of understanding about the institutional capacities that support interdisciplinary knowledge production. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with members of the Centre for Marine Socioecology in Australia, we identify five principles that underpin effective interdisciplinary research organizations. The principles are: (1) support female leadership; (2) forge partnerships outside of academia; (3) develop impact-based performance metrics; (4) focus on long-term funding; and (5) cultivate a visible brand. Going forward, these principles could be used to inform organizational design that transforms institutional barriers into enablers of innovative interdisciplinary research for more sustainable, desirable, and equitable futures.
... Without broader institutional commitments, such training is difficult to access and is therefore inconsistent throughout the development of ECRs despite being necessary for advancing their research capacity (Clark et al., 2011;Turgeon et al., 2018). In addition to limited interdisciplinary training opportunities and a lack of funding and supervisory support (Golde and Gallagher, 1999;Bromham et al., 2016;Palmer, 2018), interdisciplinary research is characterized by longer timelines and delays in research outputs and publications (Yegros-Yegros et al., 2015;Said et al., 2019). Learning "diverse disciplinary languages" and developing an understanding of how to practice interdisciplinarity in different settings (i.e. ...
... Yet, similar to the findings from other studies Our analysis identified five interrelated barriers experienced by ECRs conducting and learning interdisciplinary research. The notion of barriers has received considerable attention in the reflexive research on interdisciplinarity within the marine sciences (Turgeon et al., 2018;Said et al., 2019), in environmental change research (Clark et al., 2011;Kelly et al., 2019;Palmer, 2018), and more broadly (Yegros-Yegros et al., 2015;Bromham et al., 2016). Our research confirms barriers discussed in that research related to the time and resources needs to address interdisciplinary workloads, the need for effective supervisory support, and the tenuous position of interdisciplinary researchers for securing funding, employment, and a track record of academic excellence. ...
The immense challenges associated with realizing ocean and coastal sustainability require highly skilled interdisciplinary marine scientists. However, the barriers experienced by early career researchers (ECRs) seeking to address these challenges, and the support required to overcome those barriers, are not well understood. This study examines the perspectives of ECRs on opportunities to build interdisciplinary research capacity in marine science. We engaged 23 current and former graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in a policy Delphi method with three rounds of surveying that included semi-structured questionnaires and q-methodology. We identified the following five barriers that limit ECRs' capacity for interdisciplinary research: (i) demanding workloads; (ii) stress linked to funding, publishing, and employment uncertainty ; (iii) limited support for balancing personal and professional commitments; (iv) ineffective supervisory support; and (v) the steep learning curve associated with interdisciplinary research. Our analysis highlights three main types of responses to these barriers adopted by ECRs, including "taking on too much", "coping effectively", and "maintaining material wellbeing at any cost". To overcome these barriers, we propose the following three institutional actions to build early career interdisciplinary researcher capacity: formalize mentorship, create inter-disciplinary research groups, and mainstream mental health support.
... Despite the promising potential of inter-and transdisciplinary (ITD) research for addressing urgent 'wicked' problems in the realm of global environmental change such as climate change, biodiversity loss or pandemics (Norström et al., 2020;Palmer, 2018;Steger et al., 2021;Tengö et al., 2014), it is inherently difficult to make this type of research work effectively in practice. Given the complexity of ITD research, it could be regarded as a wicked problem in itself (Norris et al., 2016). ...
... Interestingly enough, whereas "[l]eadership is one of the most widely researched and discussed topics in all areas of organizational sciences" (Yammarino 2013, p. 149), there is scant literature on leading ITD programs in general (Defila et al. 2006) and even fewer empirical studies on leading integration in such programs in particular (Hoffmann et al. 2022b;Palmer 2018). Given the importance of ITD integration in advancing sustainability studies (Kauffman and Arico 2014;Lang et al. 2012;Polk 2014), the increase of individuals (or small teams of individuals) taking over this role (Black et al. 2023;Defila et al. 2015) and the importance of leadership for attaining overarching program goals (Berger 2019;Norton et al. 2022;Salazar et al. 2019), it is key to take a closer look at integrative leadership and how it is enacted in ITD research programs. ...
This paper focuses on the critical role of integrative leadership in inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research programs. ITD programs have become one of academia’s responses to address contemporary sustainability challenges. Fulfilling the promise of such programs is extraordinarily challenging for all involved participants, but especially for program leaders who have to ensure that the perspectives of the involved program participants become truly integrated and that final and useful synthesis outputs are created. We present six core leadership challenges and respective strategies to address them to advance integration within ITD programs. These challenges include (1) mastering complexity and ambiguity, (2) advancing decision-making with lateral leadership, (3) ensuring responsibility and accountability, (4) setting program boundaries, (5) selecting suitable projects, and (6) dealing with misconceptions. We derived these challenges and respective strategies from both leading and studying in-depth three ITD programs focusing on sustainability issues in Switzerland. With this paper, we intend to promote awareness about the range of leadership challenges in ITD programs and provide actionable knowledge, which can support in particular fellow and future leaders, but also funders and heads of research institutions in their efforts to realize the integrative potential of such programs.
Graphical abstract
Image 1: © Eawag: Lisa Deutsch & Sabine Hoffmann; Stückelberger Cartoons: Christof Stückelberger, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
... interdisciplinary research team requires individual and team efforts to overcome challenges, including identifying appropriate expertise of team members to most effectively advance the project (Norris et al. 2016), narrowing cognitive gaps among members to create and share a common conceptual framework to solve research questions , and identifying institutional support and professional development programs (Falk-Krzesinski et al. 2011). Recent research emphasizes a significant role of leadership in teams to achieve a high performance (Palmer 2018, Boone et al. 2020). If done well, these efforts contribute to enhancing both future team performance and intellectual progress across different fields (Bishop et al. 2014). ...
Interdisciplinary research that links human and natural systems is critical to addressing complex environmental and ecological problems. A growing number of interdisciplinary research teams investigate coupled natural-human systems, but the degree to which they actually examine two-way linkages between the systems is limited. We examined aspects of interdisciplinary teams that were explicitly funded to conduct research including such linkages by considering attributes of team leaders, team members, and analysis methods employed. Our objective was to investigate the degree to which interdisciplinary teams studying coupled natural-human systems publish research that displays two-way linkages between systems. Our analysis shows that team members’ academic disciplines and the types of analysis methods that interdisciplinary teams apply play a crucial role in the success of the team in publishing articles that include two-way linkages. We found that the success of developing two-way linkages is enhanced when teams include leaders and/or members from interdisciplinary academic disciplines (e.g., planning departments, sustainability, environmental economics, biological and ecological engineering, and individuals affiliated with more than one academic department from different discipline categories). Additionally, the presence of social science members increases the likelihood of two-way linkages, whereas the presence of physical science or biological/life science members decreases this likelihood. Among articles that included two-way linkages, essentially all utilized a conceptual-/literature-review approach, or included simulation model analysis. Based on these findings, we conclude that interdisciplinary teams are not a mere sum of people from different academic disciplines, but a group of people who have the ability to incorporate different disciplines conceptually and analytically. To move forward, it is important to acknowledge that becoming an interdisciplinary researcher takes deliberative work. Educational programs that train students and early career scholars with flexible thinking and analytical capacities may be the key to furthering coupled natural-human systems research.
... The scope of ecosystem models has grown to include the physical, biological, and human components of the ecosystem, but to meet EBM needs, these components must not be treated as independent factors. Increasingly, experts from traditionally separated disciplines are now spanning these boundaries and giving rise to a new type of scientist who bridges and connects disciplines (Palmer 2018). This type of interdisciplinary collaboration will be key to address the knowledge gaps surrounding ecosystem-level change and to conduct research in a fashion that will be most useful to managers. ...
Ecosystem models have emerged as vital tools for evaluating management strategies and are increasingly used by policymakers. We reviewed the history of modeling and identified research gaps based on policy needs for ecosystem-based management of Narragansett Bay (RI, USA)—a highly-impacted system with a history of research and monitoring dating back to the 1950s. There is a need to disentangle the impacts of nutrient reductions versus climate change on species interactions as well as understand the ecological and socio-economic tradeoffs of management actions. Within this context, we consider the following to be important for future research and creation of ecosystem models for Narragansett Bay: (i) account for multi-scale processes and patterns through two-way model coupling; (ii) incorporate human behavior as part of model predictions; and (iii) lessen the impact of model uncertainty by identifying robust management strategies that will sustain resources under a range of potential future scenarios. Ecosystem modeling that builds on prior models and is informed by knowledge gaps will be a powerful tool to operationalize ecosystem-based management in Narragansett Bay and globally, providing sustainable pathways for nature and people.
... For example, a paragon for addressing a complex environmental problem was reported for Nova Scotia, Eastern Canada. In this study a group of decision makers from industry, policy, research, communities, as well as, fishery assessed an interdisciplinary way to sustainably harness tidal energy potential (Palmer, 2018). In academia, however, discoveries are said to be more likely on the boundaries between disciplines. ...
The comprehensive understanding of increasingly complex global challenges, such as climate change induced sea level rise demands for interdisciplinary research groups. As a result, there is an increasing interest of funding bodies to support interdisciplinary research initiatives. Attempts for interdisciplinary research in such programs often end in research between closely linked disciplines. This is often due to a lack of understanding about how to work interdisciplinarily as a group. Useful practical guidelines have been provided to overcome existing barriers during interdisciplinary integration. Working as an interdisciplinary research group becomes particularly challenging at the doctoral student level. This study reports findings of an interdisciplinary group project in which a group of doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers from various disciplines faced the challenges of reconciling natural, social, and legal aspects of a fictional coastal environmental problem. The research group went through three phases of interdisciplinary integration: (1) comparing disciplines, (2) understanding disciplines, and (3) thinking between disciplines. These phases finally resulted in the development of a practical guideline, including five concepts of interactive integration. A reflective analysis with observations made in existing literature about interdisciplinary integration further supported the feasibility of the practical guideline. It is intended that this practical guideline may help others to leave out pitfalls and to gain a more successful application of interdisciplinarity in their training.
... Despite institutional goals to increase interdisciplinarity, in reality, interdisciplinary collaboration with a continuous exchange and active collaboration between different disciplines is still relatively rare and most universities are poorly configured to deliver the transformations needed to shift to more collaborative interdisciplinary structures (Palmer 2018). Weingart (1997) notes that specialisation within disciplines has increased at an exponential rate and remains a prerequisite for promotion and tenure within academic institutions. ...
It has long been argued that solutions to inform better decisions on environmental challenges require research at the boundaries of scientific disciplines. Research institutes and centers at universities can be key vehicles for the convergence of scientists from multiple disciplines and the development of integrated, interdisciplinary knowledge. Through a survey of over two hundred faculty in three sustainability research institutes based in the USA, this study explored faculty perceptions of interdisciplinary research, their levels of engagement in interdisciplinary work, and how they view the role of the research institute in enabling interdisciplinary research. The investigation shows that over 95% of faculty at the institutes studied are carrying out research with colleagues outside their own discipline, with half of the faculty spending more than two-thirds of their time on interdisciplinary work. Over half of faculty members are engaging in long-distance interdisciplinary research across the natural-social sciences boundary which is seen as crucial for sustainability science. The research institutes are having a positive influence on facilitating interdisciplinarity with more than four out of five faculty indicating that the institute has enabled interdisciplinary research opportunities that would have not have been possible in their home school. The opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary research is among the most important reasons for faculty to join institutes. While limited to three institutes, the study provides robust evidence for the powerfully beneficial role that research institutes can play as enablers on interdisciplinary research within their university.
... Lessons described in this paper are based on the thoughts, reflections, and experiences of 20 leaders of ITD organizations from nine countries (Palmer 2018) elicited and synthesized over several workshops. The objective is to advise leaders across various ITD fields and provide helpful justifications for universities, funders, and governments to support ITD initiatives. ...
Urgent sustainability challenges require effective leadership for inter- and trans-disciplinary (ITD) institutions. Based on the diverse experiences of 20 ITD institutional leaders and specific case studies, this article distills key lessons learned from multiple pathways to building successful programs. The lessons reflect both the successes and failures our group has experienced, to suggest how to cultivate appropriate and effective leadership, and generate the resources necessary for leading ITD programs. We present two contrasting pathways toward ITD organizations: one is to establish a new organization and the other is to merge existing organizations. We illustrate how both benefit from a real-world focus, with multiple examples of trajectories of ITD organizations. Our diverse international experiences demonstrate ways to cultivate appropriate leadership qualities and skills, especially the ability to create and foster vision beyond the status quo; collaborative leadership and partnerships; shared culture; communications to multiple audiences; appropriate monitoring and evaluation; and perseverance. We identified five kinds of resources for success: (1) intellectual resources; (2) institutional policies; (3) financial resources; (4) physical infrastructure; and (5) governing boards. We provide illustrations based on our extensive experience in supporting success and learning from failure, and provide a framework that articulates the major facets of leadership in inter- and trans-disciplinary organizations: learning, supporting, sharing, and training.
Universities and research centres around the world have made significant progress towards establishing collaborative, interdisciplinary initiatives in sustainability science. However, more needs to be done to support the career development of junior sustainability scholars whose work is often team based and outreach oriented.
Expertise in research integration and implementation is an essential but often overlooked component of tackling complex societal and environmental problems. We focus on expertise relevant to any complex problem, especially contributory expertise, divided into ‘knowing-that’ and ‘knowing-how.’ We also deal with interactional expertise and the fact that much expertise is tacit. We explore three questions. First, in examining ‘when is expertise in research integration and implementation required?,’ we review tasks essential (a) to developing more comprehensive understandings of complex problems, plus possible ways to address them, and (b) for supporting implementation of those understandings into government policy, community practice, business and social innovation, or other initiatives. Second, in considering ‘where can expertise in research integration and implementation currently be found?,’ we describe three realms: (a) specific approaches, including interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, systems thinking and sustainability science; (b) case-based experience that is independent of these specific approaches; and (c) research examining elements of integration and implementation, specifically considering unknowns and fostering innovation. We highlight examples of expertise in each realm and demonstrate how fragmentation currently precludes clear identification of research integration and implementation expertise. Third, in exploring ‘what is required to strengthen expertise in research integration and implementation?,’ we propose building a knowledge bank. We delve into three key challenges: compiling existing expertise, indexing and organising the expertise to make it widely accessible, and understanding and overcoming the core reasons for the existing fragmentation. A growing knowledge bank of expertise in research integration and implementation on the one hand, and accumulating success in addressing complex societal and environmental problems on the other, will form a virtuous cycle so that each strengthens the other. Building a coalition of researchers and institutions will ensure this expertise and its application are valued and sustained.
Leaders of sustainability research organizations need to provide an environment where interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science flourish. Developing the necessary leadership skills and attributes requires new, targeted training programmes.
Interdisciplinary research and collaborations are essential to disentangle complex and wicked global socio-ecological challenges. However, institutional structures and practices to support interdisciplinary research are still developing and a shared understanding on how best to develop effective interdisciplinary researchers (particularly at early career stages) is lacking. Barriers to interdisciplinary approaches, which include diverse disciplinary ‘languages’, research time constraints and limited guidance on how to achieve interdisciplinarity in practice, further challenge this understanding. To help overcome these barriers, this paper provides practical advice for early career researchers and their mentors, as well as senior researchers and lab leaders, in the form of 10 tips: ‘Develop an area of expertise’; ‘Learn new languages’; ‘Be open-minded’; ‘Be patient’; ‘Embrace complexity’; ‘Collaborate widely; ‘Push your boundaries’; ‘Consider if you will engage in interdisciplinary research’; ‘Foster interdisciplinary culture’; and ‘Champion interdisciplinary researchers’. They are presented here to empower present and future generations of interdisciplinary researchers in their endeavour to solve contemporary socio-ecological challenges worldwide.
This chapter uncovers a core debate in the governance of interdisciplinary academic careers around the question of when a university researcher should embrace interdisciplinarity. None of the interdisciplinary researchers whose views informed this study regretted taking this path at the outset of their academic career and they recommended this style of training to others. Yet there was disagreement among university leadership, which in turn reveals some fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of interdisciplinary knowledge, how this is acquired, and the skills that interdisciplinary researchers offer.
Could we overcome the challenges of embedding interdisciplinarity in the academic mainstream if relevant expertise were defined and recognised as a new discipline? Such expertise includes the ability to combine knowledge from different disciplines, as well as to assess which disciplines and stakeholders have relevant perspectives, figure out how elements of problems are interconnected, decide how to deal with critical unknowns, and use research to support evidence-based change. A new discipline of integration and implementation sciences (I2S) would codify such knowledge and skills, especially for dealing with complex societal and environmental problems. It would operate in an analogous way to the discipline of statistics, as a: (1) collaborative hub within teams, (2) focus for dedicated methods journals and (3) lobby group for effective application. Key initial tasks are to develop a repository of currently hard-to-access methods, and an identifiable academic community; both guided by a unifying and motivating vision of where disciplining interdisciplinarity will lead.
This paper describes the programs and processes of a new center designed to enhance interdisciplinary team effectiveness and the building of new communities of social and natural scientists undertaking socio-environmental synthesis research. The theory and organizational structure of the center is motivated by research on interdisciplinary team science from diverse social science fields. A set of core practices was developed to catalyze the formation of new teams, facilitate team development of shared conceptual frameworks and provide customized support for teams that have challenging methodological, computational, or group dynamic issues. The vast majority of the 58 teams thus far have self-reported good progress and positive team experiences and have published extensively. Most teams took advantage of one or more forms of customized support: 21% of the teams used facilitation services, 38% support for meeting design or for resolving problems that hindered team progress, and 46% of teams used advanced computational support. Throughout, we describe the most common problems teams encountered and provide perspectives on factors and practices that may best promote positive interdisciplinary outcomes on synthesis research by teams of social and natural scientists.
As the magnitude, complexity, and urgency of many sustainability problems increase, there is a growing need for universities to contribute more effectively to problem solving. Drawing upon prior research on social-ecological systems, knowledge-action connections, and organizational innovation, we developed an integrated conceptual framework for strengthening the capacity of universities to help society understand and respond to a wide range of sustainability challenges. Based on experiences gained in creating the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions (Mitchell Center), we tested this framework by evaluating the experiences of interdisciplinary research teams involved in place-based, solutions-oriented research projects at the scale of a single region (i.e., the state of Maine, USA). We employed a multiple-case-study approach examining the experiences of three interdisciplinary research teams working on tidal energy development, adaptation to climate change, and forest vulnerability to an invasive insect. Drawing upon documents, observations, interviews, and other data sources, three common patterns emerged across these cases that were associated with more effective problem-solving strategies. First, an emphasis on local places and short-term dynamics in social-ecological systems research provides more frequent opportunities for learning while doing. Second, iterative stakeholder engagement and inclusive forms of knowledge co-production can generate substantial returns on investment, especially when researchers are dedicated to a shared process of problem identification and they avoid framing solutions too narrowly. Although these practices are time consuming, they can be accelerated by leveraging existing stakeholder relationships. Third, efforts to mobilize interdisciplinary expertise and link knowledge with action are facilitated by an organizational culture that emphasizes mutual respect, adaptability, and solutions. Participation of faculty associated with interdisciplinary academic programs, solutions-oriented fields, and units with partnership-oriented missions hastens collaboration within teams and between teams and stakeholders. The Mitchell Center also created a risk-tolerant culture that encouraged organizational learning. Solutions-focused programs at other universities can potentially benefit from the lessons we learned.
Interdisciplinary research is widely considered a hothouse for innovation, and the only plausible approach to complex problems such as climate change. One barrier to interdisciplinary research is the widespread perception that interdisciplinary projects are less likely to be funded than those with a narrower focus. However, this commonly held belief has been difficult to evaluate objectively, partly because of lack of a comparable, quantitative measure of degree of interdisciplinarity that can be applied to funding application data. Here we compare the degree to which research proposals span disparate fields by using a biodiversity metric that captures the relative representation of different fields (balance) and their degree of difference (disparity). The Australian Research Council's Discovery Programme provides an ideal test case, because a single annual nationwide competitive grants scheme covers fundamental research in all disciplines, including arts, humanities and sciences. Using data on all 18,476 proposals submitted to the scheme over 5 consecutive years, including successful and unsuccessful applications, we show that the greater the degree of interdisciplinarity, the lower the probability of being funded. The negative impact of interdisciplinarity is significant even when number of collaborators, primary research field and type of institution are taken into account. This is the first broad-scale quantitative assessment of success rates of interdisciplinary research proposals. The interdisciplinary distance metric allows efficient evaluation of trends in research funding, and could be used to identify proposals that require assessment strategies appropriate to interdisciplinary research.
Interdisciplinarity has become all the rage as scientists tackle climate change and other intractable issues.
Why we should not ignore interdisciplinarity’s critics. Integration and Implementation Insights
- R Szostak
Szostak, R. Why we should not ignore interdisciplinarity's
critics. Integration and Implementation Insights https://i2insights.
org/2017/11/07/interdisciplinarity-and-critics/#more-9798
(2017).
- D D Hart
Hart, D. D. et al. Elem. Sci. Anth. 4, 90 (2016).
- F J Reckling
- C Fischer
Reckling, F. J. & Fischer, C. Soc. Sci. Res. http://doi.org/fxvz5h (2010).