Interdisciplinary research: the prize and the pitfalls

The first of two articles on fostering valuable interdisciplinary collaborations

I recently started a new research development role, and part of it will relate to fostering more and better interdisciplinary research. The bad news is that I haven’t cracked that challenge yet, but the good news is that I’ve got a few thoughts to share that might be helpful.

In this first article, I’m going to ask why we would want to foster interdisciplinarity in the first place and talk about some easy-to-make mistakes when we act to do so. In the second article, I’ll be making some positive suggestions about potentially more productive way of working.