Dear David,

You have addressed the most essential component of research. If institutions have to scale up to success, then Interdisciplinary research is mandated.

I agree with Claire Su-Yeon Park and others in this issue. We recently undertook few studies on the warehouse optimisation and signal solutions to augment ambulance movements. The study involved sensors, iot, software development, databases and system design. This was a great approach as many departments were involved. We developed algorithms combining all technical aspects. It was a good solution that came at the end. Thanks to all my multi disciplinary teams for all the help.

interdisciplinary

Dear Agnieszka Will geb. Gronek and others. General answers are fine. If you have specifics and the time, please include. I value the richness and depth of nuanced answers. If you're referring to any particular field or groups of disciplines, please include.

Personally, I worked on one project that involved diagnostic imaging, anatomy and genetics in Medical; materials science in Physics; Engineering; anthropology, archaeology, economics, political science in Social Sciences; Computer Science [imaging]; Southeast Asian Studies (Area Studies Dept.); history, art history, religion (Arts [Humanities])... All this was one University and very complicated for what should have been quite easy - that year in particular the university was touting how interdisciplinary they were. I know projects can get very complicated sometimes. Government was just as complicated, but, when I could recruit multidisciplinary teams, it was easier. They were part of one capability and one team so the government and the accountants were "happy" it fell under one "category".

Many of the problems have to do with accounting, accountability, responsibility and credit (who's paying, where's the money going to or coming from, who's dedicating time to something outside their salaried job [i.e., outside their work "box"], we want credit for success but no blame for failure, we don't want to be responsible for... and so forth). At the administrative level, there's a lot more fear and frankly resistance and laziness - especially if there isn't a streamlined normative process. And, there seems to be a million ways to say "no", with only one difficult way to say "yes". It's quite sad that to get through many barriers I often have to say, "you don't have to pay for anything, and, if anything goes wrong, you won't be responsible". That's how much fear there is. However, that assurance also cultivates more suspicion. Ironic. Nonetheless, perseverance pays off. I generally manage one way or another but at great expense of time, energy, and overall effectiveness. Some of the negotiating is personality driven. Much of it here depends on the socio-economic status and title of yourself or who's supporting you. Unfortunately the "rich, powerful and famous" connections are often placed above the quality and impacts of the project. Nothing new to the world. Again, perseverance.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

The provision of interdisciplinary examples you are interested is important to your audience.

David Kyle Latinis Hi, David. I am currently doing the multidisciplinary research, which nursing science, micro economics, mathematical economics, operations research and decision psychology (i.e. hard (natural) sciences, soft (social) sciences, and humanities). Article Optimizing Staffing, Quality, and Cost in Home Healthcare Nu...

Article Park's Optimized Nurse Staffing (Sweet Spot) Estimation Theo...

Since I am working as a translator for Korean poet Seok-Nam Jang's Lyric Poems and Prose in collaboration with American poet Paulette E. Bane, MA, MFA; thus, my scientific articles are quite literary.

I am willing to help you by participating in your survey. Please send a message or email to me: [email protected]

Dear David,

You have addressed the most essential component of research. If institutions have to scale up to success, then Interdisciplinary research is mandated.

I agree with Claire Su-Yeon Park and others in this issue. We recently undertook few studies on the warehouse optimisation and signal solutions to augment ambulance movements. The study involved sensors, iot, software development, databases and system design. This was a great approach as many departments were involved. We developed algorithms combining all technical aspects. It was a good solution that came at the end. Thanks to all my multi disciplinary teams for all the help.

Hi everyone. Happy New Year and thanks for the discussion contributions. With regards to “multidisciplinary” and “interdisciplinary”, I use them somewhat interchangeably here. However, in practice, they are often complementary. For the questions posted in the discussion, I specifically meant multidisciplinary teams (team members working together on an issue, problem or project from different disciplines, backgrounds, or vocations that, almost necessarily, involves an element of interdisciplinary contribution - especially if the genesis of new hypotheses, theories, etc. is one of the goals albeit on the “applied side” this may also include perspectives, approaches, solutions and so forth. I hope this helps. Additionally, one of the primary overarching purposes of the forum is to elucidate the real-world problems people face when implementing multidisciplinary projects (e.g., administrative resistance, exorbitant wait times to process requests, permission denials, communication problems, team dynamics breakdowns, internal and external suspicions at multiple levels [among team members, among their heads, among the administrations, between institutions, between countries, etc.], imbalanced workload contributions, concerns/fighting over credit, responsibility, acknowledgement... a wide spectrum of counter-efficiency phenomena), examples (brief), and useful solutions.

For example: I’ve trained team members on advance troubleshooting before implementing design, data collection, and analysis for team anthropological interviews, multidisciplinary historical ecology projects, deep data pre-election analysis, etc. The first thing I list in the heading of an email and “read-ahead” is: Do the reading to avoid these common mistakes... [list the pitfalls and outcomes based on empirical assessment of a vast amount of experiences]... mistakes that cumulatively lead to a lot of time and cultivate project breakdowns, divisiveness, and animosity. 90% of the time, several key team members don’t bother and quickly go down those paths. When I ask why they didn’t read the 2-3 pages of 12 point font (15 minutes or so), they complain it was too lengthy. I find this rather ironic as it's part of their job (i.e., reading). The average time wasted to undo and restart can range from days to weeks or even months.

Also, read-aheads for meetings: Many people simply ignore this and attend decision-making or design meetings thinking it will be a rehash of the read-aheads, then complain about why we have so many meetings (several follow-up meeting are required in order to eventually get to the decision making or design aspects). Not preparing for interviews. Relatively simple things, and I’m hardly the anal-retentive type vis-a-vis these aspects.

However, I’m often called to troubleshoot and fix numerous projects for governments, IOs, NGOs, private sector, etc. - these being common to many. In fact, troubleshooting “ others’ ” projects is one of the “jobs” I’ve done in multiple countries for decades and have built an informal reputation on it.

Anther problem set: Administrations often pay lip service promotion to multidisciplinary research, but are subsequently reluctant to put them into action. Many times they put up roadblocks and prevent rather than promote teams to effectively work together. Administrative heads or higher level non-experts often micromanage well outside their capabilities, causing further delays, problems, and frustrations. Team members are not on the same page - they are not using clear definitions, examples and analogies to enhance communication. Vocational/technical languages and often daily language (mother tongues/first language) may be vastly different. Goals are not clearly established. Workloads, duties, contributions, etc. are not clearly defined and established. Some members are slackers. Others are opportunists. Others carry the bulk of the work but are overworked and marginalized during acknowledgements and credit. Setting and enforcing clear, concise, and appropriate expectations can be difficult.

Various personality types are in constant conflict. Some members are disempowered while others super-empowered causing imbalances. Establishing hierarchies when needed or implementing flat heterarchies when needed can be difficult. . Some members unintentionally and intentionally undermine each other. Some members simply don’t fit the needs of the project. Often, team members get along great but their respective administrations and institutions are distrustful of each other, fight, and cause problems.

Despite all the above, I’ve designed, ran, evaluated and/or assisted numerous projects that have attained high degrees of success - effective, efficient and quite often fun.

Again, I hope this helps.

Thanks again and best regards,

DKL

All involve a coming together of multiple disciplines to approach a problem but differ in whether knowledge is shared in a way that is additive (multidisciplinary), synthesized and harmonized (interdisciplinarity), or integrated and transcendent (transdisciplinarity) across disciplines (Alvargonzàlez, 2011; Choi & Pak, 2006).

Alvargonzalález, D. (2011). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and the sciences. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 25(4), 387-403.

Choi, B. C.K., & Pak, A. W. P. (2006). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education, and policy: 1 definitions, objectives, and evidence of effectiveness. Clinical & Investigative Medicine, 29(6), 351-364.

My answer will be a bit of a rant, so I apologize.

It used to be that researchers focused on questions, not fields or disciplines. Many of the greatest scientists of history worked in a wide range of areas. And really, this makes sense. Fields are ways to organize topics, but they're not valid divisions of information. Epidemiology, for instance, involves anthropology and sociology, biology, complex systems, graph dynamical systems, computer modeling, and more.

So why do we focus so much on fields or disciplines, rather than research questions? Why don't we just have a degree of science or degree of arts, or a degree in broad areas, rather than degree of X in Y (like Masters of Science in Biology)? It's because higher education has become more about getting a ticket to get a job than it is about research. And that has stagnated research. We need transdisciplinary research, because research questions are inherently transdisciplinary, in so many cases.

I have to admit that I've given up on getting a M.S. and beyond, due to the lack of ability to get people to work with me on various research projects that are not incredibly narrow focused. And Agnieszka Will geb. Gronek, I certainly understand the need for a proper foundation. I do think that much of that foundation can be obtained through online coursework via Coursera, edX, et al. However, I also have 243 credits (42 grad) in order to establish a foundation in a number of fields.

While it is often easier to do research in a specific field, I still think it has more to do with the "job certificate" nature of modern degrees than anything else. So much research is inherently cross-disciplinary. Consider artificial intelligence, and the very specific question of how to test for quality and stability of an artificial general intelligence framework. Is that computer science, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy?

I think what we need is a new degree path: a degree in polyathematics, which focuses on not focusing on a field, but rather integrating fields together. It would incorporate design thinking methodologies that I mentioned in another answer, project management, philosophy of science, and so on, and those with such degrees would act as developers of theory that spans disciplines and coordinator between those who work in specific disciplines. Maybe I'll write a short post about it and post a question on RG. Hmm...

Agnieszka Will geb. Gronek, I wouldn't say that I am unwilling to ever finish an advanced degree. However, I had a rather negative experience: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/okay-suny-new-paltz-daniel-goldman/

After this experience, I will no longer go out of my way to obtain an advanced degree. I am always interested in learning, and I am absolutely going to continue to write in a scholarly format and post my work for public discussion. My hope at this point is that if I continue to write, and it is of high enough quality, it will be cited in other peoples' works, over time. My overall goal is to have an impact on research. And perhaps, one day we will find a way to monetize our impact. Perhaps RG could create a blockchain/cryptocurrency pair that generates new tokens as more research as added, and doles that research out amongst its users, based on their impact (RG score perhaps?) If not, perhaps someone else will create such a system.

1. Pros/Benefits/Advantages:

People with different disciplines will see a problem differently and offer solutions and insights well outside the PI's field.

2. Cons/Detriments/Disadvantages:

It can be difficult for people to appreciate what the other person is saying.

3. Problems/Roadblocks:

There can be a social problem within the team if the other person quickly solves a problem that someone has been struggling with for years.

4. Recommendations/Solutions:

The outsider can play up their inadequacy in the other's discipline.

5. Examples (should you have time):

How many people have asked me to look at any of their water problems that you are aware of? How many archaeologists do not have a water aspect in their topic?