The evolution of Irish Institutes of Technology (IoT) to Technology University (TU) status is near completion. These changes have resulted in a heightened need for the new TUs to continue to build on previous success in 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.  Building a research culture of interdisciplinarity (ID) will be a key aspect of achieving these milestones. At the centre of this move toward ID are the Principal Investigators (PIs), actors who find themselves responsible for delivering research projects; something which requires them to think and talk across disciplinary boundaries.  

Until relatively recently, the use of the term ID has been inconsistent with respect to how and in what way it is defined. Therefore, conducting a review of the extant literature is helpful to explore different approaches and conceptualisations of ID and their historical emergence. Furthermore, conducting this review will identify the underlying theoretical positions as a first step towards the completion of a successful research study aimed at augmenting current knowledge on how to manage interdisciplinary research and development environments. Ultimately, better enabling PIs and their research teams to think and talk beyond their core discipline; to overcome the troublesome knowledge of disciplinary barriers; and to communicate across professional disciplinary boundaries.

The aim of this paper is to explore the historical emergence of interdisciplinarity and its main conceptualisations.

The following questions guide the literature review:

1. How is interdisciplinarity defined?
2. How has the concept of interdisciplinarity developed over time?
3. What are the key conceptualisations of interdisciplinarity within the literature?

Theoretical Framework:

The concept of ID has, over the last few decades, rapidly gained popularity within the research arena – including Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). It has impacted all areas of research, including practice, teaching, and policy. Proponents of ID posit arguments for why it is not only beneficial but necessary for tackling the large-scale challenges facing society. Examples of such support can be seen across the research landscape, from funding agencies introducing requirements for interdisciplinary collaboration in competitive calls (European Commission, 2018), to HEIs reducing the number of research centres so that researchers are coalesced into more interdisciplinary settings (EUA, 2021). Substantial innovation relies on the ability of research leaders to facilitate diversity and integration across disciplinary boundaries within their teams. (Gray, 2008).

Interdisciplinarity, although sometimes presented as being in a dichotomy with disciplinarity, fundamentally relies on an integration of different disciplines. Ways of thinking within individual disciplines have certain similarities (Donald, 2002; McCune & Hounsell, (2005): i) a deep engagement with the epistemology, ii) command of the vocabulary and theory of the field, that leads ultimately to iii) a different mindset or way of thinking and practising that is distinctive of the discipline. The differences between disciplines are often subtle and lie in the type of language used, the logical structure, preferred criteria for validating knowledge and most pronounced methods or modes of inquiry (Apostel, Berger, Briggs & Michauud, OECD, 1970; Dirkx, 1996; Becher & Trowler, 2001, Lave & Wenger, 1999). Donald’s working model of thinking processes across the disciplines reveals six thinking processes and behaviours that are coded across five methods of inquiry: hermeneutics, critical thinking, problem solving, scientific method and expertise (2002, pg24).

To answer the research questions, a narrative review of the literature (Green et al, 2006) was used to provide a broad overview of the topic and describe the development of the concept (Slavin, 1995; Day, 1996). This was appropriate given the introductory nature of the subject material within the overall research study. The authors reviewed seminal works, books, journal articles, websites, and EU reports, accessing both empirical and nonempirical literature that related to ID. Internet databases as well as university library resources were used in the search, utilising key terms including “disciplinarity”, “cross-disciplinarity” and “interdisciplinarity”. The search results were further refined through the additional use of combinations of “interdisciplinary research”, “collaboration”, “team science”, and “higher education”. As the breadth of the literature widened, search results were refined again to explore specific avenues of interdisciplinarity by including terms such as “research leadership”, “barriers to”, “development of” and “future of”. After reading each selected text, it was analysed and documented in a literature table to identify key elements such as themes, findings, links to the theoretical framework, and methodology. An annotation was written for each piece, to aid in the writing of this paper as well as the Literature Review chapter of the PhD dissertation. This paper is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the field of ID, but rather was designed specifically to answer the questions that were derived from the overall study.

The term ‘interdisciplinary’ first emerged in the early 1900s within the social sciences (Keestra, 2019) and was widely used by the 1960s and 1970s (Mayville, 1978; Meeth, 1978; McGrath, 1978). However, the term was generally vaguely defined and relatively casual, with a focus on curriculum development as part of the “general education” movement, or “interdisciplinary studies”. This approach often did not actually integrate disciplines anywhere other than the course descriptions or prospectuses (McGrath, 1978). Klein, one of the foremost scholars on ID, described these early stages as crucial to its development in “real-world problem solving” (Lotrecchiano & Hess, 2019). More explicit definitions of ID emerged through events like the formation of the Association of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) in 1979 and publications such as the OECD volume Interdisciplinarity in 1972 and the 1982 Newell & Green article Defining and Teaching Interdisciplinary Studies, which emphasised the requirement for the integration of disciplines. Integration has now become a prerequisite when defining ID (Klein, 2021). Two main overarching conceptualisations of ID are apparent in the literature. First, ID is systematic and normative, “filling the gaps” left between traditional disciplines (Campbell, 1969; Chettiparamb, 2007) and essentially resulting in the production of its own basic knowledge. Second, ID transcends what individual disciplines can achieve, contributing to the solution of complex problems (Jantsch, 1972; Lattuca, 2001; Pohl, Kerkhoff, Hirsch Hadorn & Bammer, 2008; Vogel et al, 2013). The latter has become the most widely accepted (though not universal) conceptualisation, with proponents positing that ID does not simply bring together actors from across disciplines, industries and sectors but introduces coordination and collaboration between them (Jantsch in Newell, 2013; Defila and Di Giulio, 2015; Klein, 2021; Laursen, 2022). Finally, a range of contrasting typologies resides within both these conceptualisations, identified by Frodeman (2017) including Methodological/Theoretical, Bridge-Building/Restructuring, and Instrumental/Critical.

Selected References: Apostel,L., Berger,G., Briggs,A., Michaud,G. Eds. OECD. (1970) Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities. Washington D.C. OECD Publications. Campbell, D. (1969). Ethnocentrism of disciplines and the fish-scale model of omniscience. In M. Sherif & C. Sherif (Eds.), Interdisciplinary relations in the social sciences (pp. 328-348). Chicago, IL: Aldine. Chettiparamb, Angelique. (2007). Interdisciplinarity: a literature review. Donald, J.G. (2002) Learning to think: Disciplinary perspectives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. EUA (2021) The National Framework for Doctoral Education in Ireland: Report on its Implementation by Irish Higher Education Institutions. rep. Dublin, IRL: EUA Solutions. Frodeman, R. (ed.) (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. 2nd edn. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Green, B.N., Johnson, C.D. and Adams, A. (2006) “Writing narrative literature reviews for peer-reviewed journals: Secrets of the Trade,” Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, 5(3), pp. 101–117. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0899-3467(07)60142-6. Keestra, M. (2019) “Imagination and Actionability: Reflections on the Future of Interdisciplinarity, Inspired by Julie Thompson Klein,” ISSUES IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES, 37(2), pp. 110–129. Klein, J.T. (2021) Beyond interdisciplinarity: Boundary work, communication, and collaboration. Oxford University Press. Laursen, B.K., Motzer, N. and Anderson, K.J. (2022) “Pathways for assessing interdisciplinarity: A systematic review,” Research Evaluation, 31(3), pp. 326–343. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvac013. Lattuca, L.R. (2001) “Creating interdisciplinarity.” Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv167563f. Lotrecchiano and Hess (2019) “The Impact of Julie Thompson Klein’s Interdisciplinarity: An Ethnographic Journey,” ISSUES IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES, 37(2), pp. 169–192. Mayville, W.V. (1978). Interdisciplinarity: The mutable paradigm, AAHE/ERIC Higher Education Research Report, Issue 9, Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. McGrath, E.J. (1978). Interdisciplinary studies: An integration of knowledge and experience. Change Report on Teaching(7), 6-9. Meeth, L.R. (1978) Interdisciplinary Studies: A matter of definition. Change Report on Teaching 10(7), 10. Newell & Green (1982). Defining and teaching interdisciplinary studies. Improving College and University Teaching, 30:1 (Winter), 23-30 Salter & Hearn (1996) Outside the lines: issues in interdisciplinary research. Montreal QC, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press Slavin, R.E. (1995) “Best evidence synthesis: An intelligent alternative to meta-analysis,” Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 48(1), pp. 9–18. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/0895-4356(94)00097-a. Vogel, A. L., Hall, K. L., Fiore, S. M., Klein, J. T., Bennett, L. M., Gadlin, H., Stokols, D., Nebeling, L. C., Wuchty, S., Patrick, K., Spotts, E. L., Pohl, C., Riley, W. T., and Falk-Krzesinski, H. J. (2013) ‘The Team Science Toolkit: Enhancing Research Collaboration through Online Knowledge Sharing’, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 45: 787–9.