Investigating interdisciplinary practice: methodological challenges (Introduction)

Abstract

Interdisciplinarity (ID) is one of the most prominent ideas driving science and research policy today.1 It is applied widely as a conception of what particularly creative and socially relevant research processes should consist of, whether in the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, or elsewhere. Its advocates, many of whom are located in current science and research administration themselves, are using ideas of interdisciplinarity to reshape university organization and research funding. For the last 40 years, researchers studying interdisciplinarity have built up a substantial body of literature constructing various visions of what it should be and how to taxonomize the different forms it can take, putting a distinct emphasis on a theoretical approach to conceptualizing and understanding interdisciplinarity. However, the need for empirically substantiated knowledge has only recently attracted wider attention (see Huutoniemi et al. 2010; Klein 2000, 2017). Moreover, our understanding of what the critical constraints on interdisciplinary interactions are is very limited, even though this knowledge is very relevant to the rather strong expectations associated with ID. Interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge production may indeed be beneficial for tackling certain problems such as the systemic uncertainties and ethical issues addressed within the realm of “Responsible Research and Innovation,” which matches ID agendas in many ways (see Wickson and Carew 2014). At the same time, it is far from clear whether and to what extent the theoretical representations of ID given in interdisciplinary studies, science policy, and other areas of scholarship actually match what is happening, or if they are even possible in practice (see MacLeod and Nagatsu 2018).