Abstract
Environmental challenges are complex and
require expertise from multiple disciplines. Consequently, there is
growing interest in interdisciplinary environmental research that
integrates natural and social science, an often arduous undertaking. We
surveyed researchers interested and experienced in research at the
human—environment interface to assess perspectives on interdisciplinary
research. Integrative interdisciplinary research has eluded many of our
respondents, whose efforts are better described as additive
multidisciplinary research. The respondents identified many advantages
and rewards of interdisciplinary research, including the creation of
more-relevant knowledge. However, they also reported significant
challenges and obstacles, including tension with departments (49%) or
institutions (61%), communication difficulties, and differing
disciplinary approaches, as well as institutional barriers (e.g., a lack
of credit in promotion and tenure). Most (52%) believed that developing
interdisciplinary breadth should begin as early as the undergraduate
level. We apply our results to recommendations for successful
interdisciplinary endeavors.
Environmental issues are characterized by dynamic
interactions between humans and ecosystems. Humans now dominate the
majority of Earth's ecosystems through land transformation, climate
change, alterations in global biogeochemistry, and biodiversity loss (
Vitousek et al. 1997,
Ellis and Ramankutty 2008).
Historically, researchers have addressed questions about environmental
change and human well-being from within traditional academic disciplines
(
Redman 1999). The division in universities between the natural and social sciences has proven especially enduring (
Heberlein 1988,
Kinzig 2001).
However, new approaches in which complex, interrelated human and
natural systems are evaluated in an interdisciplinary manner are
increasingly being acknowledged as an important part of addressing
environmental issues (
Liu et al. 2007a,
2007b,
Ostrom 2008).
Interdisciplinarity
has been defined in several ways and is often used to label research
initiatives that may not actually deserve such a distinction (
Klein 1990). We define
interdisciplinary environmental research
as research that involves scholars from different disciplines
collaborating to develop terminology, research approaches,
methodologies, or theories that are integrated across multiple
disciplines in order to address environmental problems. This definition
emphasizes a problem-driven approach, teamwork, and the integration of
disciplines (
Klein 1990).
Multidisciplinarity is distinct from
interdisciplinarity
in that it is additive rather than integrative; that is, although a
multidisciplinary research project includes perspectives or methods from
several disciplines, the project's researchers still act within and
preserve the exemplary concerns of their own discipline (
Klein 1990).
The
call for interdisciplinary environmental research has come from myriad
scientific disciplines, including ecology, economics, urban planning,
political science, geography, sociology, anthropology, and engineering
(e.g.,
Liu et al. 2007a,
2007b).
Major funding initiatives have been introduced in the United States to
specifically promote interdisciplinary environmental research, including
the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Dynamics of Coupled Natural and
Human Systems program and the Integrative Graduate Education and
Research Traineeship (IGERT). In addition, large international
interdisciplinary research networks have been initiated (e.g., the Earth
System Science Partnership, the International Geosphere—Biosphere
Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environmental Change, Future Earth). Despite an increasing number of
interdisciplinary graduate programs, research centers, departments,
funding opportunities, and research networks, true integration of
natural and social sciences remains a challenge (
Pohl 2005,
Marzano et al. 2006,
MacMynowski 2007,
Vincent and Focht 2009).
Sjölander (1985)
argued that successful interdisciplinary research must be preceded by a
stepwise process of mutual negotiation and understanding of different
perspectives and that this process frequently derails before
interdisciplinary projects reach maturation. Interdisciplinary
collaborations can be characterized as different types (
Laudel 2001) and by different rationales (
Barry et al. 2008).
Barry and colleagues (2008)
noted that disciplines are themselves “heterogeneous assemblages”
without fixed boundaries and argued that interdisciplinarity is not
solely about the degree of integration among multiple disciplines but
also about how the involved parties interact and their overarching
objectives. This may be especially true in the context of natural and
social scientists working together to address controversial questions.
Prior literature on interdisciplinary environmental research is replete
with personal observations, experiences, and opinions (e.g.,
Naiman 1999,
Bruhn 2000,
Fry 2001,
Brown 2002,
Campbell 2005,
Graybill et al. 2006), discussions about disciplinary approaches and epistemology (e.g.,
Pickett et al. 1999,
MacMynowski 2007,
Miller et al. 2008),
and qualitative investigations of cultural and institutional barriers
that can prevent successful interdisciplinary endeavors (e.g.,
Golde and Gallagher 1999,
Wear 1999,
Pohl 2005,
Rhoten and Pfirman 2006,
Jacobs and Frickel 2009,
Leduc 2010).
In several empirical studies, the experiences of those engaged in
interdisciplinary environmental research have been investigated (e.g.,
Hersch and Moss 2004,
Marzano et al. 2006,
Vincent and Focht 2009,
2011).
However, in none of those empirical studies have experiences with
interdisciplinary research been systematically assessed at an
international scale or across all career stages. Scientists and
administrators still do not have a comprehensive view of the
perspectives and experiences of human—environment researchers, which is a
key first step in identifying how to facilitate successful
interdisciplinary endeavors.
In this study, our objective was to
provide a broad perspective on the experiences, perceptions, and factors
influencing the success and failure of interdisciplinary environmental
research by using a survey of primarily North American interdisciplinary
researchers. Our study, the first quantitative study of this scope to
our knowledge, was focused specifically on understanding the nature of
interactions between the natural and social sciences in
interdisciplinary environmental research. We surveyed researchers that
we perceived as having interest and experience in research at the
human—environment interface and focused on the following questions: Are
researchers achieving integrative interdisciplinarity? What are the
perceived benefits of and challenges to successful interdisciplinary
research? What perceived degree of institutional support exists for
interdisciplinary research? At what career level should
interdisciplinary training begin? How do experiences and perspectives
differ between natural and social scientists?
Data collection
We administered a 76-question survey in May 2011 to natural
scientists and social scientists at universities, research institutes,
and science-funding organizations. The survey included a broad set of
questions about the respondents' experiences with and perspectives on
interdisciplinary research. We also collected information about the
backgrounds of the respondents, including their career level, area of
expertise, and general demographics. The subsets of questions, data
collected, and response coding from the survey used in this study is
shown in the supplemental material, available online at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2013.63.9.10.
We
recruited the survey respondents by e-mailing an invitation, cover
letter, and survey link to approximately 2000 individual scientists and
heads of or contact individuals at departments or organizations
identified collectively by the author team as potential participants in
interdisciplinary research. Potential participation in interdisciplinary
research at the human—environment interface was identified by (a) the
respondents' research interests, publication record, or involvement with
university entities with the explicit mission of solving
human—environment problems with an interdisciplinary approach; (b) their
association with the International Network of Research on Coupled Human
and Natural Systems (CHANS-Net), including recipients of funding from
the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program; or (c) their
participation in the IGERT program. We asked those contacted directly to
forward the e-mail to others whom they believed would be interested in
the survey. We sent a second e-mail approximately 2 weeks later to thank
those who had completed the survey or as a reminder to complete the
survey. The Office of Research Integrity at Oregon State University
granted permission for the use of human subjects.
Respondent demographics and backgrounds
We received 323 responses to the survey (table S1 in the supplemental
material provides a description of the variables). The respondents'
geographic distribution (281 responses) included several regions of the
United States: the East (38% of 281), the West (26%), the Midwest (16%),
and the South (5%). Eleven percent of the respondents were from Canada,
2% were from Europe, 1.4% were from Asia, and less than 1% were from
South America or Africa. Eighty-six percent of the 223 respondents who
answered the relevant question identified themselves racially and
ethnically as white or Caucasian, with fewer as Asian (9%), Latin
American or Hispanic (4%), African American (less than 1%), Middle
Eastern (less than 1%), or “indigenous” (less than 1%). The majority of
the respondents (227 responses) were male (65%). The average age was 46
years old (standard deviation [SD] = 12; 218 responses), and the
respondents had worked in their current position for an average of 9
years (SD = 9; 289 responses). Two-thirds of the respondents (67% of
181) reported an average gross income in 2010 that exceeded $75,000.
Most of the respondents (93% of 282) were based in academia, whereas 4%
were from research institutions, and 3% were from government agencies.
Graduate students represented 22% of the 285 respondents who identified
their career stage, whereas most of the remainder self-identified as
scientists at the early (15%), middle (21%), or late (38%) stages of
their careers. Seventy-nine percent of 231 respondents held a PhD, and
82% held an MS.
Thirty-five percent of the 235 respondents who
answered the relevant question (i.e., 82 respondents) self-identified as
natural scientists, 25% as social scientists, and 30% as both natural
and social scientists. The latter category contains individuals who
indicated that they participate in both natural and social science
research and is not mutually exclusive with the natural and social
scientist categories in our results. The remaining 10% self-identified
solely as
other. We report survey results for natural scientists, social scientists, both, and all of the respondents (which includes the
other
group and those who did not respond to the question on researcher
category). The disciplines among the natural scientist respondents
included ecosystem ecology, landscape ecology, forest ecology,
environmental engineering, marine science, and conservation biology. The
disciplines among the social scientist respondents included human
geography, natural resource management, economics, anthropology,
archaeology, sociology, environmental policy, and environmental history.
The disciplines reported by the
other group included engineering, planning, policy analysis, extension or outreach, and humanities.
Participation in interdisciplinary research
Prior publications indicate that achieving interdisciplinary
environmental research that integrates natural and social science
remains a challenge, despite its promotion from within both the natural
and the social science groups (
Pohl 2005,
Marzano et al. 2006,
MacMynowski 2007,
Vincent and Focht 2009).
We asked two questions to assess the degree to which the respondents
engaged in both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research (table
S2 in the supplemental material). A majority of the natural scientists
(65% of 115), the social scientists (71% of 105), those who
self-identified as both natural and social scientists (70% of 56), and
all of the respondents (64% of 245) reported that they had participated
in multidisciplinary projects but not in interdisciplinary ones.
Approximately one-third of the respondents had participated in
interdisciplinary research. Collaboration on interdisciplinary projects
with researchers outside of one's discipline was common for all of the
groups (28%, 24%, and 25% for the natural scientists, the social
scientists, and both, respectively). The results indicated that 3% of
the respondents had not worked on either interdisciplinary or
multidisciplinary projects. Sixty-eight percent of the 78 responding
social scientists and 57% of the 77 responding natural scientists
indicated that at least half of their research included collaboration
with someone from a discipline other than their own (
figure 1).
Figure 1.
Percentage
of respondents whose research included collaboration with someone
outside of their discipline a given percentage of the time.
Benefits and drawbacks of interdisciplinary research
Past commentary has highlighted the benefits of interdisciplinary
research, including fostering the ability to view issues from diverse
perspectives (
Naiman 1999), the evaluation of complex problems related to the environment (
Redman 1999), the establishment of broad networks for idea sharing (
Rhoten 2004), and student enthusiasm (
Vincent and Focht 2011).
Conversely, noted drawbacks include the time necessary to learn about
other disciplines, differing levels of personal commitment, difficulties
with communication between colleagues, challenges with publishing (
Naiman 1999,
Wear 1999,
Campbell 2005), a lack of encouragement to explore topics beyond the focus of a department or adviser (
Golde and Gallagher 1999), and the trade-off between interdisciplinary breadth and disciplinary depth (
Jacobs and Frickel 2009).
Our
data collection included information about the benefits and challenges
of interdisciplinary research (supplemental table S3). Many of the
respondents reported that tension during interdisciplinary research
occurs often with both departments (49% of 204) and institutions (61% of
185) (
figure 2a, 2b).
Only 11% and 8% of the respondents reported that they had never
experienced tension with departments or institutions, respectively. Most
of the respondents (83% of 179) had either often or sometimes had
trouble publishing research results because the research did not adhere
to or fit neatly within traditional disciplinary frameworks (
figure 2c).
Tension with collaborators was less frequently reported. However, the
majority of the respondents (82% of 212) felt that they had at least
sometimes experienced tension with collaborators during
interdisciplinary research due to differences in their methods,
theories, or approaches (
figure 2d). These trends were relatively similar across groups.
Figure 2.
Percentage
of respondents that often, sometimes, or never experienced (a) tension
with their department; (b) tension with their institution; (c) perceived
difficulties publishing interdisciplinary research (IR) results because
they did not adhere to or fit neatly within traditional disciplinary
boundaries; and (d) tension with their collaborators because of
differences in methods, theories, or approach.
We used content analysis (
Neuman 1997)
to identify common themes among responses for stated rewards,
advantages, challenges, and obstacles. Across respondents, the
formulation of new perspectives and intellectual stimulation was most
frequently identified as the greatest reward (38% of 187 responses) and
advantage (37% of 179) (
figure 3a, 3b).
Additional rewards and advantages included the creation of knowledge,
increased relevance of research, connecting knowledge bases, the joys of
collaboration, and personal gain or interest. The responses for rewards
and advantages were similar for the natural and social scientists and
for those self-identified as both natural and social scientists.
Figure 3.
Response
percentages for the greatest (a) reward from, (b) advantage of, (c)
challenge of, and (d) obstacle to interdisciplinary research (IR).
Communication
difficulties were frequently identified by the natural scientists (30%
of 95 responses), the social scientists (24% of 83), those
self-identified as both (27% of 49), and all of the respondents (28% of
192) as the greatest challenge to interdisciplinary research (
figure 3c).
Additional commonly identified challenges by the natural and social
scientists were a difference in perspective, culture, or methodology
(25% and 27%, for the natural and social scientists, respectively) and
difficulty understanding multiple disciplines (14% and 16%,
respectively). Other noted challenges (in order of their frequency)
included time and funding limitations, institutional barriers,
difficulty initiating collaboration, and a lack of existing research
methods and standards.
Issues related to time and funding were
most frequently cited as the greatest obstacle to interdisciplinary
research by the natural scientists (19% of 84 responses), the social
scientists (19% of 79), and all of the respondents combined (24% of 173)
(
figure 3d).
In order of their frequency for all of the respondents, other issues
included negative perceptions of interdisciplinary research by
traditional disciplinary specialists (the most commonly reported
obstacle by those self-identified as both natural and social
scientists), disciplinary boundaries, communication difficulties,
institutional barriers, and limits to career advancement and publishing.
Additional responses included a lack of existing research methods and
standards, difficulty initiating collaboration, problems with team
management, a lack of training or mentorship, and a dominant traditional
reductionist epistemology.
A majority of the natural (65% of 110
responses) and social scientists (71% of 102) considered a willingness
to engage with colleagues trained within diverse disciplines to be the
most important factor contributing to successful interdisciplinary
research. This trend was also observed for the group that
self-identified as both natural and social scientists and for all of the
respondents. Personal relationships (i.e., positive social interactions
during collaboration) ranked as the second most important factor for
each respondent group. Eighty-two percent of the respondents indicated
that those two factors were either very important or extremely
important. Experience with the study system and experience working in an
interdisciplinary team were ranked as less important by a majority
(over 75%) of the respondents. Write-in responses included the
understanding and acceptance of different disciplines, believing that
the relevant research is worthwhile, disciplinary competence,
leadership, courage, curiosity, flexibility, and institutional support.
Institutional support
Past research has suggested that institutional barriers are commonly encountered in interdisciplinary endeavors (
CFIR 2004) and that conventionalism (
Hersch and Moss 2004), administrative priorities (
McConnell et al. 2011), and a lack of support for technological infrastructure to enhance communication (
Rhoten 2004)
can hinder successful research. Limited resources, the academic reward
system, institutional cultures, program evaluation, departmental
policies and procedures, and issues related to time and funding
requirements all impede institutional support for interdisciplinary
research (
CFIR 2004).
To
evaluate institutional support for interdisciplinary research at the
human—environment interface, we asked the respondents to identify the
greatest institutional barrier to interdisciplinary research and used
content analysis (
Neuman 1997)
to evaluate their responses (supplemental table S4). The most commonly
perceived institutional barriers to interdisciplinary research for the
natural scientists, the social scientists, those self-identified as both
natural and social scientists, and all of the respondents were limits
to career advancement and a lack of credit given to interdisciplinary
research in the context of promotion and tenure (
figure 4).
The natural and social scientists also identified the entrenched
disciplinary approach in universities, a lack of funding, and a lack of
departmental support as primary institutional barriers to
interdisciplinary research. Several answers did not fit into these
categories—for example, a lack of opportunity for cross-discipline
interaction, communication barriers, overly specific prescribed outcomes
(e.g., quantitative models), departmental or institutional politics,
and excessive time requirements.
Figure 4.
Institutional barriers to interdisciplinary research identified by survey respondents.
Interdisciplinary learning
Those who participate in interdisciplinary research have suggested
that learning about such research should begin early in a career (
CSEPP 1995,
Golde and Gallagher 1999,
Moslemi et al. 2009,
McConnell et al. 2011).
However, others have suggested that interdisciplinary environmental
research be left to more-senior researchers, who face less-rigid
performance evaluations and are better equipped for the complexity
associated with leading interdisciplinary research projects (
McConnell et al. 2011).
More
than half of the respondents (52% of 225 responses) indicated that they
believed that interested researchers should begin to pursue
interdisciplinary research at the undergraduate level (
figure 5).
Beyond that, most of the remaining respondents believed that
interdisciplinary research should begin at the master's or PhD level.
Fewer than 10% believed that interdisciplinary research should begin
following graduate education (
figure 5).
The responses from the natural scientists, the social scientists, and
those self-identified as both did not differ significantly; 53%, 50%,
and 52%, respectively, stated that the undergraduate level was
appropriate for the initiation of interdisciplinary research.
Figure 5.
Education
or career level at which interested researchers should begin
interdisciplinary research, as a percentage of all survey responses.
Conclusions
Our objective in this study was to generate a more comprehensive
understanding of the experiences and perspectives of researchers who
have an interest in or experience with research at the human—environment
interface. Our work provides the first (to our knowledge) empirical
assessment on an international scale of the opinions of natural and
social scientists at multiple career stages on interdisciplinary
collaboration. However, the results reported here constitute only a
single data collection, in which the respondents self-selected their
categories. Further studies are needed to build on our small sample size
and our geographical focus on North America. Although our results
cannot be generalized to all scientists, we believe that they provide
data to support key insights for facilitating research collaborations
between natural and social scientists, as well as for informing further
research.
Our results can be summarized by the four key insights described in
box 1.
Moving from multidisciplinary to interdisciplinary interactions remains
a great challenge for both natural and social scientists. Progression
from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity is not inevitable within
projects (
Klein 1990). In fact, the progression may actually occur in the opposite direction under certain circumstances.
Pohl (2005)
reported that forcing interdisciplinarity in a top-down manner is
likely to be viewed as a burden among the project scientists, who may
distribute the work to the researchers by discipline under increasing
pressure to produce results. Therefore, collaborative projects in such
cases may be prone to remain in a contractual mode, in which tasks are
carried out within isolated disciplinary units and only externally
linked to produce a common product (
Epton et al. 1984).
The alternative, a consulting mode whereby tasks are carried out in a
single unit, with the results reflecting internal, substantive links
among disciplines, is much more challenging to achieve (
Epton et al. 1984), depends on the collaboration type and rationale (
Laudel 2001,
Barry et al. 2008), and appeared to elude the majority of our respondents.
Box 1. Key insights gained from the survey
Interdisciplinarity at the human—environment interface remains elusive
The
majority of survey respondents were doing additive multidisciplinary
work, despite widespread discussion about the importance of integrative
interdisciplinarity.
Institutional barriers to interdisciplinarity are common
Institutional
barriers to interdisciplinary work were reported to be more common than
interpersonal collaboration barriers. The respondents indicated they
are willing to work toward interdisciplinary approaches, despite the
significant time and effort required to navigate collaboration. However,
in many cases, they are still being held back by institutions,
especially in the context of career advancement.
Natural and social scientists have similar experiences
The
two groups identified similar perceptions of rewards, advantages,
challenges, and obstacles to interdisciplinary research. This is a
positive sign for future success. There is a mutual recognition of what
can and does derail synthesis work. A shared understanding of the vital
role of communication during initial cross-disciplinary interactions can
improve the chances of self-awareness that helps collaborations
advance.
Developing interdisciplinary breadth should begin early
Most
of the respondents believed that the undergraduate level is the
appropriate time to begin training individuals in interdisciplinary
research. This is significant, considering the traditional focus only on
disciplinary depth in many institutions and the belief that advanced
degrees are primarily for training single-discipline specialists.
The
challenges and barriers to achieving successful interdisciplinary
environmental research, as they were identified in our survey, can be
divided into two categories: challenges on an individual, interpersonal
level for team members to achieve interdisciplinary synthesis and
systemic institutional barriers at the departmental, institutional, and
discipline levels that do not promote or reward interdisciplinary
synthesis. Our results confirm the challenges described in previous
publications and indicate similar perceptions by natural and social
scientists.
Tension among collaborators is not uncommon,
regardless of project scope, and forming social relationships within the
collaborative group and a willingness to work well with others are
critical to the success of interdisciplinary research. Communication
difficulties were described by the respondents as “speaking different
languages” and a need to “work through terminology to really see other
disciplinary viewpoints.” The respondents frequently confirmed the
extensive time and effort required for successful interdisciplinary
collaboration in the face of disciplinary fissures that was suggested by
previous research (e.g.,
Sjölander 1985).
Social relationships may serve as a basis for overcoming communication
difficulties and different perspectives, cultures, and methodologies (
Marzano et al. 2006), identified by our respondents as the two greatest challenges to successful interdisciplinary research.
Barry and colleagues (2008)
discussed the potential for a subordination-service mode of
collaboration between natural and social scientists, in which the social
sciences would be used to fill a gap in a natural science discipline.
The respondents provided some evidence of this. One social scientist
remarked that there is a “lack of respect for social sciences as real
science,” whereas another stated that “natural scientists are typically
clueless about concepts and methods from the humanities and social
sciences.”
Many of the institutional barriers reported by the
respondents, including limits to career advancement, the lack of funding
availability, the existing disciplinary culture in academia, and a lack
of departmental support, reflected those previously identified in the
literature (e.g.,
CFIR 2004)
and were reported at similar frequencies by the natural and social
scientists. However, our results suggest that systemic institutional
barriers may be more commonplace than interpersonal challenges for both
natural and social scientists. Publication of research was commonly
cited as a perceived barrier, albeit less frequently than departmental
and institutional barriers were. This difference may be a result of the
proliferation of interdisciplinary environmental journals in recent
years (e.g.,
Ecology and Society, Ecological Economics, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Ambio, Nature Climate Change), which promote interdisciplinary thinking but probably rely on reviewers who are immersed in particular disciplines.
Although
new publication outlets can arise relatively rapidly, cultural change
in academic departments and institutions occurs more slowly. Multiple
survey respondents revealed frustration when alluding to slow cultural
transitions in their academic units, which are often intellectually
dominated by senior faculty. For example, the respondents reported that
the greatest obstacles to interdisciplinary research included “dealing
with dogmatic recalcitrant has-beens,” “old men,” or “ancient
uninterested faculty who hate everyone outside their field.” In
addition, there was a widespread sentiment among both the natural and
the social scientists that interdisciplinary environmental research does
not receive enough credit in the context of promotion and tenure. One
respondent noted that “the reward system punishes interdisciplinary
collaboration.” Given the interdisciplinary nature of most contemporary
environmental questions (
MA 2005),
our results suggest that many academic departments and institutions
have yet to sufficiently encourage and reward the necessary pragmatic
environmental synthesis work. Interdisciplinarity is unlikely to thrive
if the significant time commitment and efforts to obtain funding
required for interdisciplinary work are not rewarded. Early-career
researchers should be aware that, in some cases of career advancement,
interdisciplinary work might not be given equal credit to that given for
disciplinary work.
Understanding social and ecological dynamics
at the human—environment interface requires a very broad range of
knowledge. Many respondents claimed that it is difficult to “master
multiple tools and ways of thinking.” Multiple respondents also alluded
to doubts about the effectiveness of a generalist perspective that
produces all-encompassing but imprecise pictures of study systems, an
issue raised by previous authors (
Carpenter et al. 2009).
The respondents reported concerns about individual researchers'
“spreading out too much” and “research not taken seriously because it is
not in-depth in any discipline.” In addition, the negative perception
of interdisciplinary research products by disciplinary specialists was a
commonly reported obstacle to interdisciplinary success (
figure 3).
A balance of disciplinary expertise and interdisciplinary integration
appears necessary for a perception of potential success by others.
The
perceived need for a combination of interdisciplinary breadth and
disciplinary depth raises important questions about the best path of
education for those wishing to engage in interdisciplinary research on
environmental issues. Our findings echo perspectives put forth by
previous authors (
CSEPP 1995,
Golde and Gallagher 1999,
Moslemi et al. 2009)
that an introduction to interdisciplinarity should occur at an early
career stage—as early as undergraduate training. The respondents
overwhelmingly rejected the notion that interdisciplinarity is best left
to senior researchers.
Despite the challenging path to successful
interdisciplinary research, the respondents provided ample evidence
that such collaboration has substantial payoffs. The benefits of
successful interdisciplinary endeavors (as quoted from individual
respondents) are personal (“intellectual agility,” “broadened
perspective”), shared among the collaborators (“a union of multiple
strengths”), and essential for gaining traction on complex environmental
issues (“having a broader impact”). The increased relevance of
interdisciplinary research results was frequently mentioned, which
supports the notion that this approach to environmental questions
produces more meaningful results. It is therefore essential that
researchers successfully communicate their results to disciplinary
specialists and the public to maximize the impact of their findings. The
rewards and advantages reported by many respondents connect
interdisciplinary work with a new, exciting intellectual frontier.
However, interdisciplinary inquiry is not historically novel (
Klein 1990,
Barry et al. 2008), so contemporary human—environment research can draw inspiration from traditional ecological knowledge in some cases (
Martin et al. 2010,
Seijo and Gray 2012).
Interdisciplinary research has great value in addressing inherently interdisciplinary environmental issues (
Kinzig 2001,
CFIR 2004).
On the basis of our findings, we can make recommendations that will
help foster success in interdisciplinary projects. These recommendations
are focused on team building, institutional reward systems, and
foundations in education and training.
The success of projects is
strongly linked to the strength of the team. We recommend that
researchers engaging in new collaborations discuss the challenges
inherent in the development of an interdisciplinary project at the
outset to foster self-awareness and successful outcomes (
Sjölander 1985,
Campbell 2005).
For example, the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program
now administers 1-year exploratory team grants in addition to larger
multiyear grants. Grants such as these allow new teams a chance to
envision potential synthesis results (
CFIR 2004)
and the challenging path they must navigate to achieve them and also
provide time for the development of critical interpersonal relationships
(
Marzano et al. 2006).
We have observed cases in which an outside facilitator is brought in to
help direct an interdisciplinary team, which can provide helpful
guidance. Graduate and postdoctoral positions with dual advisers can
also help bring together senior researchers across a perceived
disciplinary divide.
Success in the academic environment is
measured largely through the production of scholarly manuscripts.
Interdisciplinary research groups tend to initially produce fewer
publications per year, but over a 10-year time span, publish almost
twice as many manuscripts (
Hall et al. 2012)
as discipline-specific teams do. In the context of promotion and
tenure, administrators and senior faculty members need to recognize that
interdisciplinary projects may result in a time delay of perceived
success, but the resulting measurable success is likely to be large. In
addition, steps should be taken to increase access to funding
opportunities designed to promote the development of interdisciplinary
teams, thereby cultivating a more interdisciplinary university culture (
CFIR 2004).
Finally, we suggest an increased emphasis on developing interdisciplinary breadth not only in graduate education (
Moslemi et al. 2009)
but at the undergraduate level, as well. Interdisciplinary
undergraduate degree programs, research experiences for undergraduates,
and interdisciplinary courses focused on topics of high societal
relevance can aid this process (
CFIR 2004).
Acknowledgments
This article resulted from collaboration among recipients of the
Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) Fellowship at the 2009
symposium of the US chapter of the International Association for
Landscape Ecology. Funding was provided by the International Network of
Research on CHANS (CHANS-Net), sponsored by the National Science
Foundation. The Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at
Michigan State University provided coordination for CHANS-Net. EDR was
supported by a PhD graduate fellowship from the Louisiana Board of
Regents during this study. TK acknowledges support from the Einstein
Foundation. We thank Jianguo Liu and William McConnell for supporting
construction of the online survey module and Terralyn Vandetta for her
efforts with module construction.
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