Two hearts beating in a research centers’ chest: how scholars in interdisciplinary research settings cope with monodisciplinary deep structures

Abstract

Interdisciplinary research is a popular mode of knowledge production that becomes intensively promoted by research centers all across the globe. Despite the facilitation of interdisciplinary research, however, scholars working in these centers are ‘disciplined.’ Career promotions, funding decisions and scientific publishing are based on peer-review procedures that tend to favor monodisciplinary research. This paper builds on a qualitative study with scholars in interdisciplinary research centers in Germany and asks how scholars cope with these monodisciplinary demands. After deriving a conceptual framework, the study identifies four coping strategies: disciplinary innovation, strategic compliance, niche-seeking, and field creation. Each of these strategies is characterized by a different degree of openness to knowledge bases of other disciplines and a different degree of proactivity towards monodisciplinary demands from the scientific field. The results illuminate how research agendas become disciplined despite interdisciplinary motivation and organizational support of interdisciplinary research.