Interdisciplinary research is a buzz phrase these days, but how much are people actually doing it…I mean, really doing it (not just putting their names on big multi-PI grants)? And what can/should be done to encourage scientists and research institutions to do more than just pay lip service to it?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, both for a story I’m working on (one big reason I’ve been not-so-blogadelic here—more on that later) and for the future development of Nature Network. The recent formation of the collaboration group here on NN has further spurred my thinking.
So as a first step, let me open up the floor here for discussion.
1. What are some good examples of good, productive interdisciplinary collaborations that you’ve seen or actually experienced first-hand as something that really worked?
2. What were the key ingredients for making these collaborations successful? Ingredients can include funding and administrative mechanisms, the types of people involved, the types of questions and communications involved, culture, technology, websites, specific features of websites, etc etc.
3. What more can be done to encourage more such collaborations to happen?
To answer 3 (and hence sort-of answer 1 and 2), I think bringing the right people together is one key, and then making sure they talk to each other enough so that they understand what each can bring to the table.
I’m part of a Finnish Centre of Excellence which is made up of three groups. Two mainly work on evolutionary genetics, but the third is a group of physiologists. One of the problems has been to integrate the three groups together, particularly the physiologists. What also hasn’t helped is that the group I’m attached to is in a different university, about 2 hours away by train.
Initially there were discussions between the groups, but it took some time to work out what they groups could offer each other. At the last meeting of the centre we set some time aside for people to get into smaller groups and discuss projects they could work on together. That seemed to work, but we’ll see how well at the next meeting.
I guess my take-home message is that constant communication needs to be encouraged. The collaborations group is a start, but we need more than that. For web-based collaboration, I think the tools are there, but we need to work out how to use them, and I’m only jsut starting to think about that. I think face to face discussions also need to be ongoing.
The other thing that happens, of course, is that a collaboration just gets going and then the funding ends. I’ve had that one recently too.
Incidentally, on the theme of collaborations, Nature has just come out with a feature story about how collaborations can go sour, leading to disputes about data ownership and publications…some of which can even end up in lawsuits. One possible solution discussed in the piece is for the collaborators to sign a sort of ‘pre-nuptial’ agreement. The story gets into some of the pros and cons.