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EKSIG 2019: Knowing Together – experiential knowledge and collaboration
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When Art meets Science: Conditions for experiential knowledge
exchange in interdisciplinary research on new materials
Camilla Groth, University of Gothenburg, Sweden & University of South-Eastern Norway,
Norway.
Margherita Pevere, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department
of Art, Finland.
Pirjo Kääriäinen, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture and School of
Chemical Engineering, Finland.
Kirsi Niinimäki, Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Department of
design, Finland.
Abstract
Interdisciplinary research across art and science offers the potential to open up new areas of
knowledge previously hidden in-between disciplines. At the same time, differences in disciplines’
theoretical frameworks, verification methods and expectations can cause discrepancies, which can
be fruitful but may also require further navigation efforts. In this paper, we discuss the potentials
and challenges of combining scientific and artistic research in interdisciplinary projects studying
new materials. We interviewed 11 researchers working in different projects that combined scientific
and artistic research in Finland and Germany, in order to investigate how they deal with different
epistemological approaches and the limitations and possibilities that they brought up the
interviews. In this paper, we focus on experiential knowledge sharing between the researchers in
their research of organic materials. Our findings show that the prerequisites for experiential
knowledge transfer need to be built consciously, over a long period of time by engaging in hands-
on practices and cognitive activities that surpass the personal comfort zone of all members, and
the common goals and research questions need to be motivating for all involved. Although
academic research funding agents encourage interdisciplinary research, funding alone is not
sufficient to motivate people to work and truly learn together. Even when motivation and common
goals are found, the short longevity of funding might drive researchers to multitask, which in turn
may damage the ideal conditions for transformational learning and knowing together. Thus, in
addition to recruiting enabling professionals who have t-shaped experience of two or more
disciplines, we suggest that conscious education in a new discipline could create a new generation
of thinkers and makers who feel comfortable in the possibly unsettling zone between the
disciplinary borders of arts and sciences.
Keywords: Art; Science; Research; Interdisciplinary collaboration; Knowledge transfer.
As the architect John Zeisel says: people collaborate when they want to do more than they can do
alone (1981/2006, 47). However, over the last decade, the research landscape has changed
rapidly as a result of globalisation and emerging complex phenomena such as digitalisation,
environmental crises and social awakenings. General research policies guide researchers towards
actively solving material, societal and global challenges through problem-oriented, solution-
focused and collaborative research strategies (Lamy, 2017; OECD). In such research efforts,
collaboration over disciplinary borders is inevitable, as the issues are multifaceted, complex and
involve several networks and relationships between multiple actors as well as deep domain-
specific knowledge.
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Moreover, creative fields are being encouraged to transgress from the disciplinary border; for
example, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) advocates collaborative projects
between science, arts and humanities, claiming significant potential in such collaboration while
also pointing out the limitations of using scientific approaches in isolation to tackle societal
challenges, for example. Similarly, many European funding agents have formulated special
research programmes around the subject, such as Horizon 2020, the OECD, the Academy of
Finland, Volkswagen Stiftung, Robert Bosch Stiftung, and the Kone Foundation.
It is thus recognised that interdisciplinary research is acutely needed to solve complex societal and
environmental problems that cannot be solved within a single discipline. Discussions on the
possible challenges and benefits of fundamentally different epistemologies meeting are now
topical. Well-established best practices that would work regardless of context are yet to be
modelled. However, these practices need to be based on recognised enablers and previously
experienced pitfalls and communicated in such a way that it forms general understandings.
Words such as interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary or even non-disciplinary have
been discussed from different viewpoints in the creative field and the humanities (Zeisel,
1981/2006; Peralta and Moultrie, 2010). Challenges, benefits, pitfalls and new understandings
have been compared and the use of the results questioned (Crix, 2010; Niinimäki, Tanttu &
Kohtala, 2017; Pirinen, 2016; Solberg, 2018; Scott, 2006; Schildrick et al, 2017). This research
borrows Alexander Refsum Jensenius’s illustration of what these different words mean, as this
illustration clearly shows the level of ‘sharing’ of experience:
Figure 1: Drawn by Alexander Refsum Jensenius, 2016 (http://www.arj.no/tag/interdisciplinary/), based on an
original drawing by Zeigler 1990.
The different modes of interaction shown above are explained by Refsum Jensenius (2016) as
follows:
● Intradisciplinary: working within one’s own single discipline.
● Multidisciplinary: people from different disciplines working together, but each person
drawing on their particular disciplinary knowledge.
● Cross-disciplinary: viewing one discipline from the perspective of another discipline.
● Interdisciplinary: integrating knowledge and methods from multiple different disciplines,
synthesising the different approaches.
● Transdisciplinary: creating a unity of intellectual frameworks beyond disciplinary
perspectives.
The illustration shows how complex collaborative research is. Several recent conferences have
highlighted interdisciplinary research in which creative practices collaborate with different fields of
science. The diversity of case studies suggests how a general template is hardly possible as the
collaborative fields differ in each case study, and so it is difficult to form general understandings
and templates for an ideal collaborative format on the basis of individual research projects.
EKSIG 2019: Knowing Together – experiential knowledge and collaboration
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The present paper stems from a collaborative research project studying biomaterials and material
development and involves researchers from the fields of design, crafts, bioart, synthetic biology
and biochemistry. The aim of the project is to cross-pollinate research methods and foster
experiential knowledge transfer across disciplines through co-creation workshops and discussion.
The different fields represented by the project’s researchers contribute through diverse interests
and approaches to materials and materiality, including experiential knowledge (Niedderer, 2007),
new materialism (Bennet, 2010) materiality and innovation (Karana, Pedgley, & Rognoli, 2015),
and feminist critique of embodiment and bioart (Radomska, 2016).
For the purpose of this paper, we are interested in general features that could facilitate the
transformative exchange of experiential knowledge in such interdisciplinary projects. The authors’
background in the field of crafts, design and art inevitably influences the motivations, perspective,
design, literature and data analysis of the research. While acknowledging its limitations, we
embrace this situatedness (Haraway, 1988) as the basis for reading interdisciplinary research in
new materials that do not aim to be either universal or exhaustive, but rather – hopefully – offer
valuable specific insights into the field.
In this paper, we take a closer look at how to share experiential knowledge in interdisciplinary
research through a set of interviews of researchers working in Finland and Germany, as outlined in
the research design section below. In order to encompass the wide field of creative domains that
our interviewees refer to, we use creative practices to refer to arts such as craft, design and related
artistic research (Varto, 2018; Biggs, 2010). When referring to science we refer to natural sciences
such as biology, chemistry, physics and biotechnology. While acknowledging that these are gross
simplifications of the various practice fields included here, we highlight that they are necessary to
enable an overarching reading of the different interdisciplinary projects in which our respondents
engage.
Fig 2. Detail of microbial biofilm, microscope picture by Margherita Pevere 2018
Experiential knowledge
Experiential knowledge, also called a posteriori knowledge, is a type of understanding that can
only be gained through experience and never through theorising only, or before the experience (a
priori). One can achieve such an understanding through close interaction with the phenomena
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under study, be this through sensory interaction or mediated by tools. Both the scientific and
creative fields use this type of experimentation through a practice-led process which tests
assumption and during which new questions might emerge (Candy & Edmonds, 2018).
Evaluations and judgements are based on expertise that grows over time and they are connected
to previous experiences. Knowledge becomes embodied in the researcher as tacit or implicit
knowledge. Within the same discipline, or between colleagues who share the same research
experience, experiential knowledge is more easily shared. However, sharing experiential
knowledge beyond disciplinary borders can become challenging, as the research methods and
epistemic frameworks might differ radically (Ingold, 2018). However, as Ingold (2013) suggests, by
investigating phenomena through practice rather than merely observing them, one can capture the
true nature of the practice and knowledge is transformational rather than merely documentational
(p.3). This transformation means that what we learn changes us and becomes part of who we are.
However, such change may not happen in an instant, and often it require a long time to develop.
Pilot interview: on fundamental epistemological differences between scientific and artistic
research
We formulated our interview questions as follows. First, we worked on our own research notes
from the aforementioned research project. On the basis of these notes, we ran a pilot interview
with a scientist who has had a long term collaboration with artistic researchers. The pilot interview
highlighted the potential for knowledge production, mutual fascination between disciplines, but also
friction areas and weak points, such as the different epistemological frameworks underpinning
scientific and artistic research. We eventually compared what emerged from the pilot interview with
the reference literature outlined above. Providing an exhaustive discussion of the epistemic
differences between science and creative practices, as well as between scientific and artistic
research, is beyond the scope of this paper as it tackles fundamental issues of knowledge
production. However, for the purpose of our research, we must outline a few clusters that emerged
from the preliminary research and pilot interview.
Objectivity is crucial in science as it aids reproducibility and production of novel knowledge on the
basis of previous research. In artistic research, objectivity is less strict, and even considered
unnecessary by some (Varto, 2018) as most processes are conducted in a subjective manner in a
qualitative frame with a close, situated approach. Consequently, verification of results is not
relevant in an artwork and related artistic research processes, whereas in science it is paramount.
In the pilot interview, this aspect led to criticism of the validity of the knowledge produced through
artistic research and to the differences in artistic practice vs. artistic research practices.
Different understandings of cause and effect create challenges, especially in explorative research
processes. Artists have a subjective understanding of interaction with materials and may animate
their materials in this process. Language can vary greatly between the two fields. In science there
can be no confusion between what is stated and the nature of facts. In art, metaphors and poetic
language are used to make a stronger, immediate connection between experience and
conceptualisation.
Finally, beliefs and politics tend to be excluded from scientific research. In contrast, beliefs,
subjective positioning, political aspects and societal issues form the core of most artistic research.
In their report on the qualities of artistic research, Hughes, Dyrssen & Hellström Reimer, (2011, 1)
state that ‘The aim (of artistic research) is often to reveal hidden concepts, critically examine social
phenomena or highlight alternative values, perspectives and scenarios’ (parenthesis by the
researchers), a thought that can be extended to certain design areas such as critical or speculative
design.
For the purpose of this article we analyse how our interviewees dealt with the aforementioned
topics and how they were or were not able to share their knowledge with others. We dive deeper
into how the interviewees perceived their collaborators as benefitting from the understandings they
gained together and how they facilitated the knowledge transfer between the participants.
EKSIG 2019: Knowing Together – experiential knowledge and collaboration
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Fig 2. Margherita Pevere performing with microbial biofilm in Eingeweide by Marco Donnarumma in
collaboration with Margherita Pevere (2018), detail of a picture by Manuel Vason.
Research design: Special interest group interviews
In order to explore the challenges and potentials of interdisciplinary collaborations, we approached
11 scientists and creative practitioners who had engaged in projects that involved researchers from
both creative and scientific fields. Although our respondents worked for large organisations or
institutes with various interests, they were all interested in cross-fertilising research and can thus
be called a special interest group.
Participants:
We chose the participants on the basis of their recent activities and successful funding applications
in the context of interdisciplinary research. Our group of participants was gender-balanced and
included scientists (5), creative practitioners (6) and researchers at different career stages: some
of the more experienced scientists ran large research teams and had published more than a
hundred international research papers. Apart from one, all either had or were pursuing a Doctoral
degree in their field. To expand our research beyond a specific national context, and based on our
own research experience, we interviewed researchers working in Finland (7) and Germany (4).
In order to obtain uncensored answers in the interviews we keep our interviewees anonymous. For
most of the interviewees, interdisciplinary research covered only part of their research activity as
interdisciplinary projects only last for a limited period of time. Some of them had education or
training in both art and science. Most of them had researched new materials in either long- or
short-term research projects. Their role in the collaboration varied from facilitating the research
through funding, acquiring staff and materials, and providing and actively participating in
discussions on the research issues to concrete hands-on actions and interactions with the
materials and other participants. Table 1 below presents our dataset according to the most
relevant parameters.
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Table 1: Education, country, level of experience, main research field, interdisciplinary project area and role
of participants.
The questions:
Our questions explored the underlying epistemological differences and how researchers navigate
these in the context of interdisciplinary research. We asked them about the extent of their
collaboration, their role in it, what led to the collaboration and what added value the collaboration
brought. We explored the participants’ views on the differences and similarities between the
creative field and sciences, such as different research paradigms, methods, validity or beliefs. We
also asked about the language they used, as we were interested in how collaborators created a
mutual way of communicating. We also asked what challenges the researchers encountered and
what advice they could give. Discrepancies and friction points and how to navigate these and the
possible benefits that they saw in engaging in the collaboration were also elicited. Finally, we
asked about their individual experiences of success or failure and what had led to these.
The interviews took place orally (except for one), in a conversational situation guided by a set of
questions. This method has the advantage of balancing systematic data collection while allowing
spontaneous observations to provide further insights. However, conversational situations might
lead to rewording, which may reduce the comparability of responses. For the purpose of collecting
qualitative data, we decided to prioritise the diversity of information over their comparability and
compensated for this with a qualitative analysis of the interviews.
Analysis
Each interview was transcribed and two of the authors conducted an initial meta content analysis
to see what types of general features emerged in the discussions. Based on these general
features, we carried out a second co-analysis process in which we detected issues that emerged
outside the predetermined questions of the interviews. The issues that generally emerged mostly
related to the respondents’ views on the differences and similarities between their own disciplines
and those of the others, the problems or breakthroughs that had emerged, and how to navigate
EKSIG 2019: Knowing Together – experiential knowledge and collaboration
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this field. This paper presents the initial analysis of the general features that emerged from the
interviews and we account for these though examples from the transcript excerpts.
Results
A central issue that emerged in the interviews was that many of the scientists we interviewed were
still unclear about what artistic research entails. In Germany, practice-based research in the arts at
the doctoral level is still a young discipline, with a discrete number of conferences but very few
PhD opportunities. In Finland, on the other hand, the discipline was established in the early 1990s.
The existence of interdisciplinary research projects in Germany, some of them newly funded,
suggests that the field is expanding. Despite this difference, scientists from both Germany and
Finland showed some confusion regarding artistic research and art practice.
The general attitude among the scientists we interviewed was that the creative fields bring new
ways of disseminating scientific research results through either their expressive display or design
application. Few scientists embraced the artistic researchers’ ability to influence the scientific
direction of the project and few took into account the possibility of utilising artistic results in their
own research outputs other than through images or prototypes. However, some of the artists
reported that their ideas contributed through raising new research questions in their group.
Most of the creative practitioners aimed for truly transdisciplinary collaboration, whereas the
scientists held a more multidisciplinary stance, according to which the two disciplines add to each
other’s work while maintaining their own expert areas. However, most of the scientists appreciated
the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration whereas most of the artistic researchers were
frustrated that their full collaboration potential was not understood by their partners beyond a
functional purpose. Almost all the participants agreed that if one has to compromise the quality of
one’s own contribution too much in order to maintain collaborative aspects, collaboration becomes
meaningless.
There was consensus on the fact that building trust and solid communication in collaborative
research requires regular presence and common activity. The opportunities of knowing together
require people to work together in the same space or facilities and engage in the research hands-
on and/or through discussions on a regular basis. Some suggested a minimum meeting interval of
about one week, but preferably daily interaction. The longevity of the project was mentioned as a
key factor for enhancing the understanding between the participants, thus short projects would be
unable to affect the participants’ way of thinking or how they are able to understand their partners’
very different approaches. Engaging in the other partners’ literature and way of thinking, although
this may mean stepping outside one’s own comfort zone, is essential for educating oneself and
each other and for building bridges and a common language that can serve as a mutual platform
on which to stand in the project.
Naturally, the factors that hindered collaboration were the opposite of the enabling conditions.
Trust, respect and appreciation of each other’s work and attitudes were considered crucial, and if
there was failure in any of these aspects, the collaborations could fall short. Both the creative
practitioners and scientists agreed that ‘personal chemistry’ meant a great deal when inviting
collaborators into a shared project, even though this feature was hard to describe. Disagreements
between collaborators were avoided using the same recipe. While the participants agreed on these
points in general, their expectations of the outcomes differed, as did the notion of successful
collaboration or a successful outcome as opposed to unsuccessful ones.
It also emerged that, even between different scientific disciplines, individual interests, personalities,
and most importantly epistemic differences may affect collaboration. Some of the interviewees
noted how the division into disciplines according to training or research fields may be incorrect
even within their own department. Interestingly, a certain ‘boundary-crossing’ emerged in the way
both the scientists and creative practitioners related to and spoke about the materials they worked
with. Although science generally requires a fundamental objective approach, some of the scientists
had no problem relating emotionally or subjectively to their material explorations. In contrast, some
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of the creative practitioners considered it important to relate to their material processes through a
scientifically organised and systematic approach in order to validate their findings in the science
contexts and to be able to contribute to publications beyond the creative field.
Providing a generally valid definition of what is a ‘successful’ collaboration in interdisciplinary
contexts is hardly possible given the variety of types, duration and objectives of interdisciplinary
collaborations. Importantly, measuring success in disciplines that are entirely different involves
different acknowledgement systems, value systems, expectations and even career paths. While
the above results were the general issues that arose in the interviews, the following discussions
focus on the challenges and opportunities of experiential knowledge transfer that the interviewees
revealed.
Discussion: Experiential knowledge transfer in interdisciplinary research
collaborations
An analysis of the interviews outlined some key enabling factors for experiential knowledge
transfer in interviewees’ experience. We tracked what the participants considered to be major
benefits of the collaboration, the challenges, and the factors that enabled them and grouped them
as follows:
1) Close physical and mental collaboration, which is only possible when people work hands-
on in the same premises.
2) Motivation to solve the same research problem while using one’s own expertise in the
mutual new context.
3) Trust, personal chemistry and the ability to transgress into the uncomfortable: the
importance of mutually educating each other and building a new language.
1) Close physical and mental collaboration, which is only possible when people work hands-on in
the same premises.
As outlined earlier, for most of the interviewees, the interdisciplinary research covered only part of
their research activity. This might have affected an aspect that most of the researchers considered
crucial, namely the time spent and the regular work done together. All the interviews highlighted
how intensive and regular communication was key for collaborating successfully, as it allowed the
partners to meet on a next to daily basis and nurture their mutual understanding of the processes,
so that everyone could understand what needed to be done next, why and how. However, also
listening to each other’s ideas and being ready to step outside one’s own comfort zone in the
process of trying to reach a common understanding was highlighted. Although regular
collaboration in physical proximity may facilitate different kinds of collaboration, this may be
particularly relevant with regard to research on new materials due to the materiality of the research
subject.
One interviewee told us how the discussion and the process of analysing their results together
influenced their understanding of new possibilities, but also that failures may bring people closer
together:
We failed completely in our first attempt, but that opened our eyes and we learned to
discuss and understand different ways of doing things, and actually the failing was the key
in this process of forming the group.
It was also generally understood that the process of finding ways in which to work together takes
time:
I don’t think we can expect very quick results. It actually takes some time to find the right
ways of doing it. I think there are very few examples of how to do this combination of
research. There are not any methods for it. So, we have to do a lot of searching of ways to
go forward.
EKSIG 2019: Knowing Together – experiential knowledge and collaboration
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2) Motivation to solve the same research problem while using one’s own expertise in the mutual
new context.
Collaboration only succeeds if partners have a mutual interest in the subject and believe that they
can shed light on aspects that cannot be covered by the disciplinary approach only. The
respondents agreed that funding alone could not make research partners work successfully or
make them motivated to work together. One of the scientists, who was not so pleased with the
collaboration, mentioned that motivation to solve a mutual research question was a key enabler:
But if we all had a common question, (...) then I would have gone straight to him and said
let’s start talking every week about this and see how we can do an experiment, how we can
find some earlier writing and maybe go to some place and do experiments there. Then we
would have a mutual interest, and that certainly is the key!
One of the creative practitioners explained:
In our team we managed to create new methods and to create new materials and use
areas, but we couldn’t have done this without each other’s help. We really needed the
scientists and designers working together for this and the combination of these two ways of
working led to success.
3) Trust, personal chemistry and the ability to transgress into the uncomfortable: the importance of
mutually educating each other and building a new language
Most of our interviewees raised the need to build a common language and clarify the setting in
which such language could be used. However, this can only happen with mutual effort to
communicate, trust, and understand each other. Although funding bodies request/propose that
research positions in a funded project should be open in order to ensure that the best applicant is
selected, many of our informants were of the opinion that the team should be handpicked. The
reason for this was the awareness that personal chemistry has a great influence on the success
and motivation of the collaboration. In the words of one of our respondents:
Complications arise in all fields, not only in collaboration with artists. It’s about what kind of
people are able to work together, about personal chemistries. Communications skills, but
not only skills, because if we want to collaborate, we should have a common interest and
know that we can learn from each other so that we are both happy to work together.
Another interviewee said:
I think the chemistry between people is really important for the success of any
collaboration, so the formation of groups might be the key to success. Because many
scientists are not able to work with creative practitioners, I think we should think more about
what kind of people are able to work together. And not just think that ok now we have ‘an
artist’ coming to the science lab, because that happens a lot.
Mutual respect and acknowledgement were also paramount. The creative practitioners in our
cohort perceived their work as undervalued when it was used for communication purposes only.
On the other hand, the scientists did not feel comfortable if they were seen as a mere source of
skills or resources. In our interviews, the scientists mentioned the potential for communication of
the creative practitioners’ input and the creative practitioners mentioned that collaboration offered
the opportunity to access resources and technologies. However, these aspects were only
marginally mentioned, and both the scientists and the creative practitioners highlighted mutual
learning as the most valuable contribution of the collaboration.
A creative practitioner from the design field had the following experience:
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(…) most scientists want to stay in their own bubble, and it’s not that easy to find the kind of
scientist who really wants to open their mind, to see new ways of doing things. But, in a
couple of groups I worked with we really took huge steps when we trusted and respected
each other. But in most cases I think that the scientists thought we were only stylists or
product designers, and that's typical. They didn’t think we could add value in other ways
such as by really bringing about something new or offering new knowledge.
To create mutual understanding and respect that crosses disciplinary borders, more than one
participant suggested that their team needed time and dedication to reach such understandings.
One experienced scientist told us:
We’ve been discussing artistic research in regular meetings for over two years now,
including workshops and mutual artistic exercises, we have even been on a retreat
together, but it’s taken a long time to find ways, and the right words to communicate. We
are very interested in each other’s work and ideas, and we are working on a mutual paper,
but we haven’t been able to produce anything concrete yet.
While working hard to understand each other, difficulties also arose. One scientist explained their
experiences as follows:
There is a gap between us, and the gap between scientists and artists is larger than I
thought it was. I believe that we can bridge this gap, but the key is that the people involved
are willing to do that. Even just negotiating the words so that people just a little outside
(their own discipline) could understand.
The way out of such a situation is awareness that it is difficult but that giving up will not take one
any further. The friction points should be seen more as possible passages and enablers of change,
as they are the point at which a bridge may be built, or where new concepts that both parties may
understand should be developed. One of our informants claimed that:
The main point is that in order to understand more in any field there has to also be some
contradictions. Somehow people can’t be in concert all the time; they need to also find
some friction points, some contradiction. In order to proceed from these friction points, you
have to be able to communicate with the others.(...) In order to understand how people are
in the world and how they understand the world we try to combine these different views, but
first we have to bridge the concepts so that we can talk to each other.
However, the usually limited duration of funding challenges regular commitment to interdisciplinary
research projects. Many researchers work on several projects simultaneously to ensure a regular
income. This in turn makes it difficult to prioritise the process of achieving qualitative results over
the dissemination of tasks in the expert fields represented in the collaboration. Thus, the good
intentions of interdisciplinary sharing were forcing the collaboration into a multidisciplinary
approach in which the different disciplines in fact worked side by side, only combining the different
results of their separate processes in the final product of their project, the research article or
prototype. Alexander Refsum Jensenius (2016) and Zeisel (1981/2006) also reflect on this notion
of thinking that collaboration is inter- or transdisciplinary when in fact it turns out to be
multidisciplinary.
Challenges in collaborating might be turned into enablers
The discussion above shows a cluster of factors that can lead to rewarding or even successful
collaboration. Most of the interviewees clearly suggested that the lack of factors such as time spent
working together or willingness to understand each other’s language might negatively affect the
research. These conditions might lead to miscommunication, feeble personal connection and trust,
and no shared language on which to build or publish. Not acknowledging the work of others can
create frustration or distrust among collaborators. Some interviewees referred to further disrupting
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factors including stolen work, hidden agendas or difficult power relations as a source of distrust
and consequent failure.
While these unfavourable conditions certainly set collaboration on the wrong track, we might also
think of failure, disruption and miscommunication as opportunities for deeper reflection. Kahane
(2017) suggests a strategy for dealing with such instances by ‘stretching’ the collaboration and
shifting away from the wish to control every part of the process or to change the others in the team.
Instead we should enter the uncomfortable zone to be able to embrace conflicts and move beyond
them (2017, 42). This might enable open-minded experimentation with new possibilities even
though it may at first seem to go against what feels natural.
We found that truly interdisciplinary breakthroughs could emerge precisely in the space that
nobody could have considered without having to stretch beyond the comfort zone of their familiar
discipline. Niinimäki et al. (2017) find that multidisciplinary collaboration in research on new
materials requires participants’ readiness to step outside the practices of their discipline and learn
collaboration (2017). However, as the challenge to understand everything in several disciplines is
overwhelming for anyone, Niinimäki et al. suggest that learning is not enough; a new type of
knowledge intermediator is needed to bridge knowledge gaps between disciplines, so that shared
understanding can happen (2017, 9). In their case this was a textile engineer, but the notion of t-
shaped knowledge skills is also common in the area of design, in which professionals have a
generally broad understanding combined with a great deal of domain-specific knowledge.
Within a different field of research, Schildrick et al. (2017) give a comprehensive account of an
experimental interdisciplinary research project on heart transplantation across medicine, the
humanities and art, which shows how an unprecedented research assemblage may lead to a fuller
comprehension of the significance and experience [of heart transplantation] as the first part gave a
feeling that the multi-disciplinary team collaborated on the heart transplantation procedure/surgery
as such (Schildrick et al., 2017, 46). Drawing on previous research (Niinimäki, 2017; Schildrick
2017) and the valuable experience of our respondents, we embrace a daring approach to
interdisciplinary research, and hope that it may pave the way for novel paradigms in research.
Conclusion
Based on our interview analysis, we would like to make a general note to researchers
embarking on research projects involving both sciences and creative practices, in order to
help them facilitate knowledge transfer between participants. Trust and openness are key to
communication in most contexts, but the specificity of interdisciplinary fields requires further
care. Our respondents’ experience clearly shows how mutual understanding and the
prerequisites for experiential knowledge transfer need to be built consciously, over a long
period of time by engaging in hands-on practices and cognitive activities that exceed all the
collaborators’ individual comfort zones while the common goals and the research questions
are motivating for all of them. Trust and respect need to be nurtured even when the ideas of
the other discipline feel unnatural or incomprehensible: breakthroughs may emerge in areas
of discrepancy.
While academic research funding agents prompt and encourage interdisciplinary research,
the present research suggests that money alone cannot motivate people to work together.
Even when the motivation and common goal is found, the short longevity of funding might
drive researchers to multitask, and this is counteractive for maintaining the ideal conditions
for truly transformational learning and knowing together. Thus, in addition to inviting enabling
professionals who have t-shaped experience of two or more disciplines, we suggest the
conscious development of novel paradigms that could educate a new generation of thinkers
and makers who feel comfortable in the unsettling zone between disciplinary boundaries.
Limitations of the research:
Interviewing a homogenous group of researchers, for instance, only creative practitioners or
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only scientists, from one country or a single research area could have provided comparable
data on factors such as experience, internationality or research objectives. Instead we chose
to look at the qualitative aspects before the comparative aspects. Additionally, a mixed
author group may have resulted in a more comprehensive research design and data
analysis, including more of the scientists view into the subject matter. Although this might
give rise to the same challenges our respondents described, an interdisciplinary approach to
the subject may create provocative research questions.
Future research:
The formation of novel paradigms that truly combine the sciences, creative practices and
humanities still alludes us, and research on interdisciplinary processes that can generate
models for best practices is still needed. Another aspect that might be worth addressing is
how funding might shape collaboration according to whether it is obtained by scientists or
creative practitioners, and how this aspect might affect power structures within the group as
well as the continuity of the research.
Acknowledgements: We wish to acknowledge the participants of this research, even
though they cannot be named here, for taking time from their busy schedules to talk to us.
This research was supported by the Academy of Finland under Grant 307476 NEWSILK The
New Road to Silk: Bio-based production of silk-like materials, the Kone Foundation and The
Finnish National Agency for Education.
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Camilla Groth
has a traditional craft background in the field of ceramics and for her PhD she studied aspects of
embodied knowing in design and crafts and developed practice-led research methods. Her
research interests revolve around experiential and embodied knowledge and materiality. Groth is
currently conducting her post-doctoral research at the University of Gothenburg and also holding a
20% Associate Professorship in arts and crafts at the University of South-Eastern Norway.
Margherita Pevere
is an artist and researcher with a visceral interest in biological matter. Bacteria, animals and plants
are her allies in the exploration of the underlying theme of ecological complexity, which she
pursues with sophisticated bodily aesthetics. Created in both the studio and biological laboratories,
Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonia
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Pevere’s installations and performances are chimeras which intertwine poetics and controversy,
critique and desire. Pevere is a PhD candidate in Artistic Research at Aalto University, Helsinki, in
collaboration with Biofilia Laboratory – Base for biological arts. supported by The Finnish National
Agency for Education (2017–2018) and the Kone Foundation (2019–2020).
Pirjo Kääriäinen
is a designer and facilitator in the intersection of design and material sciences. She currently works
as a Professor of Practice in Design driven fibre innovation at Aalto University, Finland. Kääriäinen
has been developing interdisciplinary CHEMARTS collaboration between chemical engineering
and design since 2011, focusing on the research of bio-based materials.
Kirsi Niinimäki
is an Associate Professor in Design in Aalto University, Finland. Her research focuses on holistic
understanding of sustainable fashion and textile fields and connections between design,
manufacturing, business models and consumption. Niinimäki has also studied transdisciplinary
collaboration and design-driven methods in collaboration. At Aalto University Niinimäki runs the
Fashion/Textile Futures research group http://ftfutures.aalto.fi.
