Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research

During the first 18 months of the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, the Academies undertook a study on facilitating interdisciplinary research.  Released in 2005, the study examines current interdisciplinary research efforts and recommends ways to stimulate and support such research.  Advances in science and engineering increasingly require the collaboration of scholars from various fields. This shift is driven by the need to address complex problems that cut across traditional disciplines, and the capacity of new technologies to both transform existing disciplines and generate new ones. At the same time, however, interdisciplinary research can be impeded by policies on hiring, promotion, tenure, proposal review, and resource allocation that favor traditional disciplines.

This report identifies steps that researchers, teachers, students, institutions, funding organizations, and disciplinary societies can take to more effectively conduct, facilitate, and evaluate interdisciplinary research programs and projects. Throughout the report key concepts are illustrated with case studies and results of the committee's surveys of individual researchers and university provosts.

Excerpts - Why Interdisciplinary Research?

The 206-page book, Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research (2005) is available from the National Academies Press. Below is a link to the study's executive summary, in PDF file format.

Facilitating IDR - Executive Summary