Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity. It draws knowledge from several fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, etc. It is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions emerge. Large engineering teams are usually interdisciplinary, as a power station or mobile phone or other project requires the melding of several specialties. However, the term "interdisciplinary" is sometimes confined to academic settings.
Collaboration is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group. Teams that work collaboratively often access greater resources, recognition and rewards when facing competition for finite resources.
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn about a subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem found in trigger material. The PBL process does not focus on problem solving with a defined solution, but it allows for the development of other desirable skills and attributes. This includes knowledge acquisition, enhanced group collaboration and communication.
A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. A form of citation index is first found in 12th-century Hebrew religious literature. Legal citation indexes are found in the 18th century and were made popular by citators such as Shepard's Citations (1873). In 1961, Eugene Garfield's Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) introduced the first citation index for papers published in academic journals, first the Science Citation Index (SCI), and later the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). American Chemical Society converted its printed Chemical Abstract Service into internet-accessible SciFinder in 2008. The first automated citation indexing was done by CiteSeer in 1997 and was patented. Other sources for such data include Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Elsevier's Scopus, and the National Institutes of Health's iCite.
A collaboratory, as defined by William Wulf in 1989, is a “center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform their research without regard to physical location, interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, [and] accessing information in digital libraries”.
Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach. It applies to research efforts focused on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines, such as research on effective information systems for biomedical research, and can refer to concepts or methods that were originally developed by one discipline, but are now used by several others, such as ethnography, a field research method originally developed in anthropology but now widely used by other disciplines. The Belmont Forum elaborated that a transdisciplinary approach is enabling inputs and scoping across scientific and non-scientific stakeholder communities and facilitating a systemic way of addressing a challenge. This includes initiatives that support the capacity building required for the successful transdisciplinary formulation and implementation of research actions.
Daniel Stokols is Research Professor and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology in the Departments of Psychology and Social Behavior and Planning, Policy, and Design, and founding dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. He also holds appointments in Public Health, Epidemiology, and Nursing Science at UCI. His recent research has examined factors that influence the success of transdisciplinary research and training programs. Additional areas of Stokols' research include the design and evaluation of community and work site health promotion programs, the health and behavioral impacts of environmental stressors such as traffic congestion and overcrowding, and the application of environmental design research to urban planning and facilities design. Professor Stokols is past President of the Division of Environmental, Population, and Conservation Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) and a Fellow of the APA and the Association for Psychological Science.
Inquiry-based learning is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. It contrasts with traditional education, which generally relies on the teacher presenting facts and their knowledge about the subject. Inquiry-based learning is often assisted by a facilitator rather than a lecturer. Inquirers will identify and research issues and questions to develop knowledge or solutions. Inquiry-based learning includes problem-based learning, and is generally used in small-scale investigations and projects, as well as research. The inquiry-based instruction is principally very closely related to the development and practice of thinking and problem-solving skills.
The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) is an interdisciplinary research centre within the University of Cambridge. Founded in 2001, CRASSH came into being as a way to create interdisciplinary dialogue across the University’s many faculties and departments in the arts, social sciences, and humanities, as well as to build bridges with scientific subjects. It has now grown into one of the largest humanities institutes in the world and is a major presence in academic life in the UK. It serves at once to draw together disciplinary perspectives in Cambridge and to disseminate new ideas to audiences across Europe and beyond.
An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties within colleges and universities to which their practitioners belong. Academic disciplines are conventionally divided into the humanities, the scientific disciplines, the formal sciences like mathematics and computer science, the social sciences are sometimes considered a four category.
Heritage science is the interdisciplinary domain of scientific study of cultural and natural heritage. Heritage science draws on diverse humanities, sciences and engineering disciplines. It focuses on enhancing the understanding, care and sustainable use of heritage so it can enrich people's lives, both today and in the future. Heritage science is an umbrella term encompassing all forms of scientific enquiry into human works and the combined works of nature and humans, of value to people.
Interdisciplinary Peer Review (IPR) is a peer review process with an additional focus outside of the area of the author's subject of expertise. Disciplines such as telecommunications, political science, engineering, and medicine require specific subject matter expertise, however, they still cross multiple disciplines and may require review from many alternate functional areas to achieve maximum perspective to prevent duplication or improper publication. Reviews of this nature may also cross cultures, race, and other demographics to gain perspective.
The Leibniz-Zentrum für Marine Tropenforschung (ZMT) in Bremen is a German institute for research and developments for tropical and subtropical coastal areas and ecosystems.
Research networking (RN) is about using tools to identify, locate and use research and scholarly information about people and resources. Research networking tools serve as knowledge management systems for the research enterprise. RN tools connect institution-level/enterprise systems, national research networks, publicly available research data, and restricted/proprietary data by harvesting information from disparate sources into compiled profiles for faculty, investigators, scholars, clinicians, community partners and facilities. RN tools facilitate collaboration and team science to address research challenges through the rapid discovery and recommendation of researchers, expertise and resources.
Computational social science is an interdisciplinary academic sub-field concerned with computational approaches to the social sciences. This means that computers are used to model, simulate, and analyze social phenomena. It has been applied in areas such as computational economics, computational sociology, computational media analysis, cliodynamics, culturomics, nonprofit studies. It focuses on investigating social and behavioral relationships and interactions using data science approaches, network analysis, social simulation and studies using interactive systems.
Social ecology studies relationships between people and their environment, often the interdependence of people, collectives and institutions. Evolving out of biological ecology, human ecology, systems theory and ecological psychology, social ecology takes a “broad, interdisciplinary perspective that gives greater attention to the social, psychological, institutional, and cultural contexts of people-environment relations than did earlier versions of human ecology.” The concept has been employed to study a diverse array of social problems and policies within the behavioural and social sciences.
Julie Thompson Klein was a professor and scholar in the field of Interdisciplinary Studies at Wayne State University. Klein was widely known as a pioneer in interdisciplinary education, and had consulted widely in academic and other settings in the field. In 2016, she was a speaker at the Centennial Symposium of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. During her 36 years at Wayne state, her publications had been heavily cited.
Metascience is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "research on research" and "the science of science", as it uses research methods to study how research is done and find where improvements can be made. Metascience concerns itself with all fields of research and has been described as "a bird's eye view of science". In the words of John Ioannidis, "Science is the best thing that has happened to human beings ... but we can do it better."
North–south research partnerships consist of collaborations between researchers from countries in the global north and the global south. By establishing equal partnerships in north–south research, economic, social and cultural boundaries can be overcome. Such partnerships can address and enable research of issues in dynamic and complex contexts, as well as deal with uncertainties. Moreover, such research cooperation allows different perspectives to be taken into account to explore issues that are strongly value driven or linked to conflicting interests and power claims. So north–south research partnerships provide new insights in the transition towards sustainable development and facilitate the development of solutions to local and global challenges.
Brian Uzzi is an American sociologist and the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is known for his work on problems in the fields of sociology, network science, the science of science, and complex systems. He is the co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), is a professor of sociology, and a professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at the McCormick School of Engineering. Since 2019, Uzzi has written a column for Forbes on Leadership and artificial intelligence.
