Interdisciplinarity in theory and practice

Academics are increasingly calling for and asked to, work in interdisciplinary teams to address pressing social-ecological challenges. However, there are significant barriers to pursuing interdisciplinary collaborations within current university structures. Taking the first two years of our Centre for Unusual Collaborations (CUCo) as a case study of setting up a space for exploration and experimentation, we discuss how unusual interdisciplinary collaborations had unexpected effects, beyond the potential for societal impact. Most surprisingly, we found the CUCo model offered a welcome opportunity to break away from the productivism and competition that is common in academia while stimulating exploration of our own disciplines. This often led to an expansion of ideas and deepened understanding in ways that sparked joy, curiosity, creativity and meaning. We discuss how academic culture currently hampers collaboration: key roadblocks are identified, specifically rewards and recognition, the lack of spaces for trust-building, and competence and skills that are not geared towards collaboration. We present lessons learned in overcoming roadblocks to stimulate research across disciplinary lines and explain how unusual interdisciplinary collaborations provide opportunities for opening and deepening research lines, and how they can be fun and meaningful. We argue that, at a moment when academia faces growing rates of burnout and stress, such collaborations are fundamental.

Whilst policymaking will always remain a highly political process, especially amidst crises, evidence-based pandemic management can benefit from adopting a socioecological perspective that integrates multi- and trans-disciplinary insights: from biology, biomedicine, mathematics, statistics, social and behavioural sciences, as well as the perspectives and experiences of non-scientific stakeholders. We make a case for an “integrated inter- and transdisciplinarity” that overcomes the typical additive nature of current interdisciplinary work and better captures the inherent complexity of public health and other public policy problems. We propose systems science and systems thinking approaches as a useful meta-theoretical, self-reflecting approach for such integration to take place. Enabled by systems thinking, the praxis of “integrated inter- and transdisciplinarity” allows for an understanding of public health crises in a human-centred socio-ecological perspective. This grounds more holistic policy responses, which by mobilising the whole of government and whole of society, put individuals, groups, governments and society at large in critical dialogue to co-produce and co-design interventions that address crises in all their physical, social, psychological, economic and political dimensions.

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasize the inextricable connections between improved health and wider development indices. This vision is not matched by the ways that progress towards each constituent goal is achieved, and the SDGs are not on track to being met. This commentary considers theories and frameworks capturing the inter-relationships between health and its wider determinants, before discussing examples from mental health and HIV which demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary research. This commentary proposes solutions to integrate wider determinants of health into future research and practice, considering evidence from the PLuS International Interdisciplinary Researchers (PIIR) program between Arizona State University, King’s College London and the University of New South Wales, and how other approaches to interdisciplinary training can enhance clinical-academic progress in the post-COVID-19 era. Despite several frameworks promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, specialists continue to be segregated by funding, training and departmental structures. Early career researchers are well-placed to lead innovative approaches to pressing research questions. International partnership models and interdisciplinary training for early career researchers can expose participants to new perspectives and integrate wider determinants of health into future research and practice. University communities must embrace the need for a radical reimagining of boundaries and connections, if academia, too, is to “build back better.”