Within higher education, many staff are involved in research, some of whom assume a management role for research projects. Taking on this role requires creativity, innovation and thinking across disciplines, especially when working with interdisciplinary teams. The Irish HEI landscape is undergoing significant change including the transition of many Institutes of Technology (IOT) to Technology University (TU) status, which is the context for this investigation.  Within the IOT, these changes have resulted in a heightened need for continued success when competing for research funding and attracting higher numbers of PhD students. Success of this nature depends, in part, on individuals identifying new sources of social, economic, and technological innovation.  Achieving these TU performance milestones requires the development of a research innovation and enterprise mindset, the provision of customised research training and development programmes, partnerships with industry, support for professional research collaboration and networking, and a research culture of interdisciplinarity. As with any form of work, a person’s level of engagement will affect the outcomes, and it is proposed that those managing research activity are no exception. Therefore, there is value in understanding the psychological factors influencing personal engagement and disengagement specifically with interdisciplinary ways of thinking and practising in collaborative research project work. This understanding has the potential to augment current knowledge of how to manage research and development environments. It would better enable researchers to think and talk beyond their core discipline; to overcome the troublesome knowledge of disciplinary barriers; to engage in insider inquiry; and to communicate across professional disciplinary boundaries.

The aim of this research is to explore the psychological conditions in which people engage or disengage in interdisciplinary thinking and practising in their research activity at work.

The guiding research question: How do disciplinary perspectives influence the personal engagement and disengagement of individuals in interdisciplinary research and development activity, partnerships, and collaborations?

Theoretical Frameworks:

Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work represents an internal state of being, comprised of three psychological domains (meaningfulness, safety, availability) that determine whether individuals bring their preferred selves to their role as a professional working within a discipline and that of their role within an educational organisation (Kahn, 1990, 1991; Schuck, 2011). Role engagement may prompt a changed perspective as individuals identify and challenge underlying assumptions, prompting changed perspectives leading to new roles and actions (Mezirow, 1991). These processes may also lead to a change in habits of mind (Cranton, 2006) leading to new worldviews and new perspectives and identity.

Identity self-states draw on a motivational self-systems framework that incorporates ‘possible’ and ‘ideal’ selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986) and self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987, 1996). The importance of and interrelation of notions of identify, concept, emotion and agency has been established. Possible selves have a simultaneous impact on how one engages and expresses oneself in behaviours that promote connections to work, others, and job role performance (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Behijard et al 2004; Rodgers & Scott, 2008; Hamman, Gosselin, Romano and Bunuan, 2010). For example, when individuals move to an interdisciplinary context, it is important to understand how they view their distinctive roles or responsibilities.

Transformative learning emphasises the critical role experience and reflection play on existing assumptions about the world in order to arrive at a new worldview. Role engagement may prompt a changed perspective as individuals identify and challenge underlying assumptions, prompting changed perspectives leading to new roles and actions (Mezirow, 1991). These processes may also lead to a change in habits of mind (Cranton, 2006, Boylan, Coldwell, Maxwell & Jordan, 2018; Graham Cagney, 2019, 2021) leading to new worldviews and new perspectives and identity.

This study adopts a relativist ontological position. The design incorporates a qualitative mixed methods sequential approach (Creswell & Clark, 2017), comprised of a bibliometric analysis of TU research groups, centres or research academies/institutes, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The sequenced combination of these methods provides an opportunity to obtain a broader understanding from a participant perspective, of the key constructs to emerge from the fieldwork data. Other data sources include documents gathered directly from participants, organisation websites, and published research reports by funding agencies and other stakeholders. Purposive sampling (deMarrais, 2004) drawn from the bibliometric information will identify participants from the population of interest. Inclusion criteria are those who manage or previously managed a large-scale research project, and are either research active academics or professional researchers. They are likely to be associated with identifiable research groups, centres or research academies/institutes. Phase One: Informal discussion with four key stakeholders to help the researcher understand the field of interest and to design the most appropriate approach to gathering the bibliometric data. Following ethical approval, a pilot of the semi-structured interview protocols will take place. This will test/refine the protocols and interview questions for the main study. Phase Two: Following ethical approval, 30 interviews and four focus groups will take place during 2022-2023. Participants will self-select. Semi-structured interviews of up to 60 minutes duration will take place either in person or via Zoom. With participant informed consent, the interviews will be digitally recorded, transcribed by the researcher, and member checked by participants via e-mail. Follow-up interviews will be offered if clarification or deeper inquiry is deemed necessary and if agreed to by the participant. Consistent with qualitative methodology, the data will be analysed using a constant comparative method to construct categories or themes that capture the recurring patterns (Saldaña, 2014). This will be supported by use of ATLAS.ti software. Phase Three: Following a first stage-preliminary analysis of the data, the emergent themes from the data will be shared with focus group sessions comprised of a small number of participants. This offers an opportunity to conduct a deeper member checking procedure and to add further insights to the preliminary findings. The anticipated duration of participation for an individual subject will be up to a maximum of two hours: one interview session of 40-60 minutes and an optional 40-60 minutes for a focus group session.

Phase One: preliminary findings from the pilot study will identify the issues, problems, challenges and opportunities of managing an interdisciplinary large-scale research project. Thus, this information will inform the final design of the interview protocols and the focus of the research questions. Phase Two: The majority of extant research on research and development environments and innovation activities in Higher Education contexts focuses on organisational/institutional systems, structures and procedures; stakeholder management; economic and financial drivers of projects, new product development and commercialisation. In other words, the ‘hard’ or socio-technical aspects of interdisciplinary research environments; and most commonly with a focus at the level of group or organisation. Extant research has paid relatively less attention to inter-personal dynamics and intra or personal experiences of individuals involved in these research projects in higher education. Consequently, results from Phase Two of this research study will focus on interventions only at the level of the individual. Therefore, findings from the completed study are expected to: • Shed light on individuals’ experiences of managing research projects that will lead to knowledge on how to build competence in working in an interdisciplinary environment. • Add to what is known about changes in disciplinary habits of mind based on personal experiences of perspective transformation; and identify how to support these personal transitions through professional learning and development initiatives. • Develop a model of an evolving professional identity self-state that is interdisciplinary and linked closely to extended doctorateness and higher order thinking. • Explore the experiences of technology university researchers in building strong relationships with other researchers, the R&D centres and industry partners and show what is unique about the context of a technological university. • Map a series of professional learning and development initiatives to support interdisciplinary thinking and working for research active staff.

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