Guest blog: What makes an interdisciplinary researcher?

Defining interdisciplinarity for emerging and early career researchers

In this guest blog, early career researcher and Priestly International Centre for Climate Scholar Alexandra Woodford shares her perspective on why it’s important to define the nature of interdisciplinarity.

An introduction

I’m an early career researcher two years into my PhD at Leeds University Business School. My research focusses on Climate Finance Justice; basically, exploring how we can make mitigation and adaptation-targeted monetary transfers, from developed economies to developing ones, better align with ideas of justice. I explore this topic by drawing on research from the fields of economics, philosophy, geography and environmental science. Hence, I think it’s important to explore what interdisciplinarity looks like.

In this blog, I’ve looked at how interdisciplinarity is defined, and why reaching a definition is helpful for early career researchers and those wanting to begin a research career.

Global challenges and an increase in interdisciplinarity

Multifaceted global problems, such as climate change and Covid-19, have led to a shift in modern research efforts, as academics’ work becomes driven by the idea that interdisciplinary research is key to tackling contemporary complex societal challenges[i].

However, while a relative explosion of interdisciplinary journals, research groups and funding has been seen in recent years, there is little consensus on what makes a researcher or their research ‘interdisciplinary’.

Defining interdisciplinarity

Why does this matter? Surely these labels are just semantics?

In my opinion, there are three reasons that make it important to understand what is, and whether you are, an interdisciplinary researcher.

First, to thrive in academia, you need to publish journal articles. There is a ‘publish or perish’ culture. But to publish articles an editor needs to rubber-stamp submissions. Without a clear identity it’s hard to know where your research will be welcomed, and the institutionalised prerequisites for joining that conversation.

Second, with the post-doc positions awaiting any early career academic, you need to be able to ‘sell’ yourself when applying for a new job. To successfully navigate job insecurity, preceding any permanent position, a researcher needs to be able to succinctly describe what they ‘bring to the table’ as an interdisciplinary researcher.

Third, without clearly defined characteristics, the general academic development of an interdisciplinary researcher is hindered. For example, how can you work at becoming a better interdisciplinary researcher when you cannot say what defines one?

Relative framing of interdisciplinary research

To better understand what an interdisciplinary researcher is, it is first important to understand what they are not. The continuum of research typologies, as shown below, the limits of interdisciplinarity are defined as transdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity.

Figure 1[ii]

On the more integrated end, transdisciplinary research interweaves different disciplines, establishing new languages and methodologies in its associated research output. On the less integrated end, multidisciplinary research uses paradigms associated with different disciplines, to answer a given research question from a range of perspectives.

This framing highlights that, unlike multidisciplinary researchers, interdisciplinary researchers consciously bring together the paradigms of two or more different disciplines, and unlike transdisciplinary researchers does not need to create new languages or methodologies to do so. Interdisciplinary research is readily accessible to all the disciplines it looks to incorporate — it has a bridging function.

A broad definition

It may be that the concept of ‘interdisciplinarity’, like the definition of ‘sustainable development’[iii], has been kept as broad as possible. This is because such breadth makes it easier for an academic to identify as interdisciplinary. And, by extension, the more researchers gathered under the banner of interdisciplinarity, the greater the legitimacy, and application of, a more problem-based research agenda.

So an interdisciplinary researcher can be defined in opposition to a uni-disciplinary researcher — by their rejection of the strict academic silos which have traditionally defined the approach of different fields. Such a definition would be reflective of trends in economics, a field in which heterodox traditions identify themselves in opposition to the mainstream tradition[iv].

Some argue that the breakdown of these silos would count as anti-disciplinary research. These assert that interdisciplinary research is define by a shared goal, namely the use of “knowledge and skills from different disciplines to target a specific problem”[v]. Extrapolating from this point, you find that you can’t be an interdisciplinary researcher in isolation. You must operate in a group; a gaggle of academics, with each academic in their own field able to “legitimately judge another expert’s work”[v]. Without this individual field-based expertise, it is argued that academically unsubstantiated work will be produced.

Breaking down silos

Maybe only more rounded academics, with a broader knowledge base can escape the baggage that comes with being educated in a specific academic discipline. For example, economics students playing dictator[vi] or public good games[vii] are more likely than students from other disciplines to act in accordance with economics’ underlying assumptions about human behaviour. This suggests they are a product of their education and begs the question: can you be truly creative in your approach if you are tethered to a disciplinary frame? And, if so, do interdisciplinary researchers need to be intentionally created?

I would argue that being an interdisciplinary researcher, at its most fundamental, involves concluding that there is no knowledge base better or worse than another.

By consciously adopting either a pragmatic or critical realist philosophy, interdisciplinary researchers acknowledge and justify the spanning of different disciplinary preferences. Their approaches underpinned by the understanding that they are conducting research in respect to ‘what works’, or that the use of different methodologies helps to ‘triangulate’ the truth.

The future of interdisciplinary research

I don’t think there yet exists a clear definition of an interdisciplinary researcher. Maybe this is because the definition is constantly evolving, produced in accordance with the individuals who claim to be interdisciplinary researchers.

Maybe this is because there are many sub-groups of interdisciplinary researchers, whose different qualities are muddied in overarching examinations of the nature of interdisciplinary research. What I do know is that if we are to adequately respond to things such as the climate crisis using interdisciplinary research, more work is needed to understand how academics of the future, and present, can best do this.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to get in touch with Alex to discuss any of the above, you can email her at ee18asw@leeds.ac.uk

[i] Sun, Y., Livan, G., Ma, A. and Latora, V. 2021. Interdisciplinary researchers attain better long-term funding performance. Communications Physics. 4(1), pp.1–7.

[ii] Aboelela, S.W., Larson, E., Bakken, S., Carrasquillo, O., Formicola, A., Glied, S.A., Haas, J. and Gebbie, K.M. 2007. Defining Interdisciplinary Research: Conclusions from a Critical Review of the Literature. Health Services Research. 42(1 Pt 1), pp.329–346.

[iii] Robert, K.W., Parris, T.M. and Leiserowitz, A.A. 2005. What is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and Practice. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. 47(3), pp.8–21.

[iv] Lawson, T. 2006. The nature of heterodox economics. Cambridge Journal of Economics. 30(4), pp.483–505.

[v] Griffiths, P.E. 2022. Why the ‘interdisciplinary’ push in universities is actually a dangerous antidisciplinary trend. The Conversation. [Online]. [Accessed 26 January 2023]. Available from: http://theconversation.com/why-the-interdisciplinary-push-in-universities-is-actually-a-dangerous-antidisciplinary-trend-175511.

[vi] Carter, J.R. and Irons, M.D. 1991. Are Economists Different, and If So, Why? Journal of Economic Perspectives. 5(2), pp.171–177.

[vii] Marwell, G. and Ames, R.E. 1981. Economists free ride: does anyone else? Journal of Public Economics. 15, pp.295–310.