Phase 2: The Character of Interdisciplinary Research

Barriers and Challenges General challenges include: 

• Little training exists in the practice of interdisciplinary research 

• Additional time is required within interdisciplinary projects to overcome multiple languages and methodologies, develop trust between researchers and relations with stakeholders 

• A body of knowledge as to how to practice interdisciplinary research (within the field of sustainability) is still lacking 

• It is not clear that large projects or centres are the most effective at delivering interdisciplinary research 

Institutional challenges include: 

• A disjunct (for younger researchers) between interdisciplinarity and career progress 

• A lack of high-impact, prestigious interdisciplinary journals 

• University structures (departments, faculties) that mitigate against broader inquiry 

• Interdisciplinarity may inhibit career progress; the academic job market is organised into disciplines 

• There is a lack of agreement about what constitutes quality in interdisciplinary research 

• Competitive research funding is usually reviewed within disciplines 

Broader, extrinsic challenges include: 

• A peer review and research funding environment that is often not welcoming to interdisciplinary projects 

• The multiple roles that interdisciplinary researchers are forced to play, as intermediaries, facilitators and scientists

Characteristics of successful interdisciplinary research 

The report identifies 13 key considerations for successful interdisciplinary research projects. 

1. Leadership 

The leadership group must be carefully chosen, ensuring that at least one member of the leadership group has project management skills. Interdisciplinary projects that involve several sub projects and several participants (with diverse motives) working towards a common goal over are complex operations. 

2. Skills mix 

The mix of disciplines represented in the project team must be chosen based on appropriateness to the project. The right mix of non-discipline skills is also essential such as project management, communications, facilitation and stakeholder management and data analytics and statistics. Develop skills for the future, allow for succession, including the training and mentoring of junior researchers. 

3. Team work 

A good inter-disciplinary researcher should be: curious about, and willing to learn from, other disciplines (not suffer from disciplinary arrogance); flexible and adaptable; be open to ideas coming from other disciplines and experiences; creative; a good communicator and listener; able to absorb information and its implications rapidly; and a good team worker. 

4. External input 

Stakeholders and the public have information and skills that need to be combined appropriately with the information and skills of the researchers.

5. Ask the right questions 

Spend a lot of time at the beginning getting the questions right. 

6. Integrated findings 

Successful projects factor into their design, at the beginning, how the findings of the different streams of research will be integrated. Different kinds of research proceed at different paces; thus, critical paths need to be understood for successful integration. 

7. Size and scale 

While there are plenty of pressures to enlarge projects, maintain an appropriate size. Large projects do not necessarily cohere; more people means more time spent on managing them; and additional people may take the project into inappropriate directions. 

8. Meetings and communications 

Consider the time, cost and means of communication to enable the most productive outcomes. 

9. Plan for staggered outcomes 

While projects can be scoped by defining research questions, implement projects by planning to deliver tangible products. 

10. Supply and demand

Early decisions should be made about the role of end users or practitioners, whether they are to be central to the project and involved at all stages, on the leadership team or consulted at appropriate times.

11. Who will own the results? 

Understand the role of commercialisation in the research program, if necessary ensure that the team has members who can facilitate. Protocols for intellectual property ownership should be agreed before the project commences. 

12. The paperwork 

Maintain documentation. A university and a funding agency will require lots of documents; in addition to these, however, the informal agreements with team members and end users need to be documented, as do the progress of individual sub-projects and the interactions between team members (and between the team and end users). Allow for these costs. 

13. Managing the work-flow 

Recognise that the team members have other responsibilities outside the project. The timing of contributions needs therefore to be explicitly negotiated between the leadership group and each team member, and documented.

Research about sustainability means research concerned with the ability of our society to continue to exist in the long run in something similar to its present form, insofar as that depends on the biophysical quality of our environment. The report found that its sample projects investigated four principal groups of topics: climate change and its impacts; the secure, sustainable supply of water, food and energy; landscape management, biodiversity and conservation; and urban areas as human habitats.