Experiencing Interdisciplinary Research

Alan BlackwellReader in Interdisciplinary DesignUniversity of Cambridge

a policy agenda

• ‘ESRC expects to support new and exciting research which combines approaches from more than one discipline’– ESRC Impact, Innovation and Interdisciplinary

Expectations (January 2009)• ‘The aim is to bring together participants from a

wide range of disciplines to develop a fresh and innovative approach to research’– EPSRC Connect call for participants (May 2009)

an ‘industry’ agenda?

my background

• 19 years professional design experience(including design projects for London Underground, British Gas, Hitachi)

• 4 degrees (engineering, philosophy, comp sci, psychology)

• 30 products deployed• I learned that dramatic innovations come from

multi-disciplinary teams and perspectives ...• ... but how do you do this in a University?

potential: students in Cambridge

Arts & Humanities

Humanities & Social Sciences

Technology

PhysicalSciences

BiologicalSciences

Clinical

potential: research in Cambridge

Arts & Humanities

Humanities & Social Sciences

“Created to encourage collaboration between technologists, and researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences.”

strategy

AcademicPublic sectorCommercial

a Crucible “house style”

• Start small and move fast• Bring creative and design practices to technology

• Facilitate encounters between communities• Cheerfully transgress academic borders• Engage with reflective social science• Directly address public policy

Interdisciplinary Innovation – strategic creation or self-organising success?

Studying interdisciplinary innovation

• Interdisciplinary team (psychology, economics, anthropology, engineering) taking a phenomenologically ‘bracketed’ stance

• Snowball sample to find leaders and brokers• Intensive workshops with practitioner witnesses• Assume any boundaries may constitute

‘disciplines’– complex problems cross organisational & policy

boundaries– planning for the future extends beyond current

knowledge

Expecting the unexpected

• Not just transferring or translating knowledge– building teams with different kinds of knowledge

• Disciplinary problem definitions and goals may exclude insights– Outcomes are necessarily unanticipated

• Achieving radical (not incremental) innovation– Investment in collaboration is fundamental– ‘Capital growth’ is capacity for future response– ‘Dividends’ arise serendipitously

Making interdisciplinary innovation happen• Enablers

– ‘Pole star’ leadership– Trust and generosity– Time to build social capital, change one’s mind– Allow, maintain and reward intellectual curiosity

• Obstacles– Disciplines are the base of career structures– Even new inter-disciplines become silos– Patents are restrictive

(value narratives are generative)

Elements of interdisciplinary innovation

• Build ecologies, creative spaces, ‘theatres of thinking’

• The interdisciplinary enterprise– A team – open, committed and curious– A leader – mentors, maintains focus, sells the brand– A sponsor (implies goals)– Outcomes (implies evaluation)

• Practitioners– Offer personal histories, not qualifications– Must acknowledge imprinted ‘native styles’– Require stereotypically feminine skills