Beyond research disciplines?

The academic system favour isolation of problems (reductionism and intradisciplinary) so that complexity can be reduced and problems can be solved by different methodologies. The idea is that the whole system can be understood if we understand the parts. This development is obvious in natural science where a large number of new disciplines have been created. What we can see now is that cross disciplinary sciences develop where knowledge and methods from one discipline are applied in another discipline e.g. biomedicine.

When it comes to research in the area of sustainable development and in meeting the grand challenges for our civilization e.g. dependence on fossil fuels, climate change, water resources, poverty etc. different discipline try to meet in multi- and interdisciplinary scientific fields. It has however turned out difficult to merge scientific disciplines in a fruitful way. Reasons for this might be that the individuals are still thinking within their disciplinary “box”. Another problem is that it is not always people who are struggling with the real problems in society that formulates the problems and the research questions. This is done by the researchers and sometimes also by research agencies. There is thus still an important gap between academy and practitioners in city planning, industries etc. Also these practitioners have a fragmented view of the problems and tend to formulate the problems on a low system level. In reality problems like developing more sustainable pathways for cities are far too complex to break down into separate discipline areas. One can therefor ask if the existing structure of research and problem formulation really can tackle the problems relating to our unsustainable societies. Is there a pathway built on transdiciplinary science where problems and research questions are formulated outside the box, beyond disciplines? This would require much more close work between researchers and practitioners during a longer time or that individuals can move more freely between these two groups. It would also require much more flexibility and new ways of thinking around research funding.

However there is a very strong driving force for researchers to stay within their discipline and to reduce complexity in order to be able to publish in scientific journals. If you want to succeed in an academic career you should not go too far out from your main research field. The best you can do is to stay in a narrow field and also publish central review papers which are cited by many other researchers. Pioneers are still recognized by all arrows in their back.