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

Academic

Public sector

Commercial

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

• Conduct snowball sample to find leaders and brokers

• Intensive workshops with practitioner witnesses

• Consider any boundaries as potential ‘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

• Disciplines predefine problems and goals– Innovative 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 more generative)

Elements of interdisciplinary innovation

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

• The interdisciplinary enterprise– A team – committed and curious boundary-crossers– A leader – who mentors, maintains focus, and sells

the brand– A sponsor (which often requires goals)– Outcomes (which often require evaluation)

• Practitioners– Offer personal histories, not qualifications– Tend to have imprinted ‘native’ disciplinary styles– Benefit from stereotypically ‘feminine’ personal

skills