The key to effective interdisciplinary research

Complex problems don’t tend to sit neatly within academic disciplines. Climate change solutions, for example, won’t come solely from environmental scientists. Engineering, technology, architecture, economics, politics, law – even sociology and psychology, arts and humanities – will all have to pull their weight. Technology, too, means this approach is increasingly necessary.

But what happens when researchers are coming at the problem not only from different angles but from diverse research processes, scholarly languages and cultures? “Wicked problems” may not break down easily into silos but universities certainly do. The challenge of interdisciplinary work is finding common ground, with respect, inclusivity and humility.

This collection will help researchers work with each other and collaborate across disciplines; offer guidance to managers in charge of disparate teams; explain how funding and publication can work when there’s no one way to do things; how scholars from STEM and the arts and humanities can find opportunities to work together; and why interdisciplinarity is our best weapon against the issues our world faces.

Why interdisciplinary research is important 

Interdisciplinarity brings together knowledge like the Nile’s tributaries flow into its waters, writes Ben Kei Daniel. Just as resources for fertile soil, habitats and community life flow through those waters, each discipline’s methods, assumptions and perspectives add its own solutions. Find here how different perspectives can benefit research work, and why a shift in mindset is key to breaking down institutional silos. 

Where the Nile’s waters meet: creating value through interdisciplinarity and collaboration: Effective interdisciplinary collaboration hinges on four principles: focusing on the problem, understanding how disciplines interact, fostering relationships and recognising power dynamics, writes Ben Kei Daniel of the University of Northern British Columbia.

The interdisciplinary benefits of navigating a medical PhD as an engineer: Crossing disciplinary boundaries can be challenging but an engineering mindset can bring fresh solutions to clinical challenges. Semmelweis University’s Bendegúz Juhos explores how to bridge the gap, use open access to researchers’ benefit and find support to innovate.

Campus Talks: Why we need interdisciplinarity in teaching and research: Interdisciplinary thinking is crucial to addressing complex questions but how should it work in practice? Two leading academic proponents of cross-disciplinary working, Australian National University’s Gabriele Bammer and USC Annenberg’s Kate Crawford, draw on their own groundbreaking scholarship to explain in this episode of Campus Talks.

How to manage an interdisciplinary team

Communication and culture often emerge as challenges to effective interdisciplinary projects. It’s not enough to assemble a group of highly qualified researchers from across disciplines; the work depends on shared terms, power structures and measures of success. Campus authors discuss how to intentionally craft collaboration and an inclusive culture.

The best interdisciplinary research begins long before the first experiment: Investment in relationships, humility and shared purpose creates the conditions where breakthrough science can flourish, argues Jacob Barney of Virginia Tech.

Don’t just assemble an interdisciplinary research team, design one: Being intentional about collaboration across fields results in a more responsive, open and effective research project. Seyedahmad Rahimi of Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities shares advice for ensuring the right people are working together in the right way.

Interdisciplinary research cultures are inclusive, not competitive: Research that crosses disciplines strengthens networks, diversifies expertise and moves thinking beyond inherited boundaries, but effective interdisciplinarity takes time, curiosity and willingness to tackle cultural and structural obstacles. Valentina Cardo, Claire Clarkin and Ingrid Slade of the University of Southampton offer advice.

Intent: the key to effective and efficient interdisciplinary collaboration: How to make your collaborative projects run smoothly? Plan for it, writes the University of Florida’s Alina Zare.

Juggling competing priorities in research collaborations: Bringing together cross-disciplinary research teams, government and industry on a single project will need strategic management from the beginning, according to academics from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Here’s how to make it work well.

Can academic prenups help overcome barriers to interdisciplinary research?: A bottom-up approach could establish shared values, objectives, risk appetites and publication strategies as ways to mitigate challenges that hinder effective progress of interdisciplinary teams. The University of Leicester’s Himanshu Kaul explains.

Institutional structures to encourage interdisciplinarity

Higher education leaders have the power to address the common barriers preventing interdisciplinary work: highly specialised academic cultures, rigid structures and misaligned incentive systems. Here’s how to create the conditions to help interdisciplinary collaboration thrive.  

Build bridges between disciplines to foster interdisciplinarity: Mayer Cabrera-Flores of CETYS Universidad offers five practical steps to build sustainable interdisciplinary collaboration, informed by first-hand experience of setting up an interdisciplinary research institute.

How to achieve interdisciplinary research? Focus on the people: Restructuring research domains around four communities allowed academics to find their natural home, writes the University of Westminster’s Andrew Linn. Here’s how to do it.

To get started with interdisciplinarity, ask: what’s the problem?: Interdisciplinarity can often be treated as an institutional side project. But embedding it into university structures can change everything. Yuzhuo Kai of the Education University of Hong Kong shows how.

How to get an interdisciplinary research project published and funded

When each discipline has its own conventions and frameworks of success, writing a funding proposal for an interdisciplinary project is hard to get right. Australian National University’s Lindell Bromham looks into whether interdisciplinary funding applications are more likely to be rejected – and what can be done – while a team of academics from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh offer their advice for gaining funding. Plus, Antonia Pop of the University of Toronto Press explains how journals can work as a platform for researchers to share and discuss their work.

Everyone loves interdisciplinary research but no one wants to fund it: Higher education talks a lot about interdisciplinary research but finding funding is still an uphill struggle. Lindell Bromham offers a solution.

All together now: how to write an interdisciplinary research proposal: Advice on drafting successful proposals to secure support and funding for interdisciplinary projects, from three academics from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Edinburgh with experience developing research partnerships and collaborations.

Scholarly publishers’ role in fostering collaboration in academia: With the infrastructure in place to exchange ideas and information, journals can enable scholars to build on their research and accelerate discovery and quality of innovation, writes Antonia Pop.

Building bridges between STEM and the arts and humanities

Full STEAM ahead: the benefits of balancing STEM and the arts and humanities in both teaching and research are well documented. Creativity, emotional and cultural considerations and critical thinking combine with technical skills and data analysis to create a project stronger than the sum of its parts. But how to create the opportunities for scientists and artists to come together? These resources show how.

What the movement to integrate the arts and health can teach us about making research matter: Moving research into action requires more than publishing evidence. Stories, images, trusted messengers and examples of uptake can build public acceptance, shift what people see as possible and help evidence become practice and policy. Nisha Sajnani of New York University explains how.

Putting arts and humanities at the heart of research: Disciplines too often are siloed, but today’s most pressing challenges rarely fit neatly into a single field. How do we encourage science and technology fields to work with arts and humanities? Lisa McNair and Thomas L. Martin of Virginia Tech provide guidance.

Deploy interdisciplinary research against ‘wicked problems’

The world at large is facing issues too complex for one discipline to tackle in isolation – enter interdisciplinary research. Read why a collaborative approach is the best way to find the solutions to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and make a real difference to modern-day society.

Bridge the gap between university knowledge and societal challenges: Let’s build a culture where local communities can benefit from groundbreaking research. Laura Salinas of Universidad Austral describes how a funding programme helped develop research aligned with the SDGs.

Want to think bigger and achieve more? Then collaborate – an academic makes the case for collective research: On this episode of Campus Talks, Katy Börner of Indiana University Bloomington discusses leading the global Human Reference Atlas initiative and how collaboration enables researchers to think far bigger.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: investing in early career interdisciplinarity: Three PhD students from King’s College London and UNSW Sydney share tips for embracing an interdisciplinary approach to research from the start of one’s academic career to aid progress towards tackling the SDGs. 

Thank you to all Campus contributors who shared their expertise in this guide.

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