scholarly journals A Sociology of Interdisciplinarity

2021 ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Chris Foulds
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Interdisciplinary Science ◽  
Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Infrastructure Studies

AbstractIn building upon the cases presented in Chaps. 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_2, 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_3, and 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_4, we develop a Sociology of Interdisciplinarity that draws our empirical insights together with resources from Science and Technology Studies (STS), in addition to Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Research Policy, Infrastructure Studies, Anthropology, and Philosophy of Science. The key novelty of this framework is using STS insights to unpick the dynamics and consequences of interdisciplinary science, which distinguishes us from decades of earlier interdisciplinarity studies and gaps in understanding. Moreover, we not only focus on individual scholars and their experiences but pay careful attention to the wider contexts of interdisciplinary research, such as the impacts of funding structures, different access to resources, and power relations. We are careful in our approach so that our units of analyses—which vary from research groups and projects to whole epistemic communities and research policies—are most appropriate for the problem definitions that we put forward. The framework rests on a set of six dimensions, which we discuss in relation to current debates in the literature and our empirical analyses.

Making Policies for Open Data

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 320-324
Author(s):  
Sally Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Short Commentary ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Policy Forum

This short commentary reflects on policy making for open data. The articles in this special issue all raise interesting challenges and questions for research policy, broadly defined, including how to stimulate researchers to make data open in the first place, how to reuse data sensibly, and how to ensure data are appropriately stored and made accessible for future users. This commentary reflects on the author’s own experience of taking part in an international policy forum that was tasked with preparing a report about the importance of making research data open. The author describes how she attempted to ensure insights from science and technology studies—made by contributors to this special issue and many others in the field—were incorporated in the final report. She also describes how technologically determinist arguments were invoked to close down discussions about the political dimensions of open access to research data.

scholarly journals Constructing (Inter)Disciplinary Identities: Biographical Narrative and the Reproduction of Academic Selves and Communities

2021 ◽  
pp. 247-262
Author(s):  
Carlos Cuevas-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Academic Careers ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Careful Attention ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
The Core ◽  
Research Interviews ◽  
Responsible Research

AbstractInterdisciplinarity has become prominent in science policy and academia because of its potential to lead to more interesting, innovative and responsible research. However, its implications for the development of academic careers and identities are not well known, partly because different disciplinary communities regard it differently. Shedding light on how academic identities are constructed and negotiated in the context of interdisciplinary research, this chapter presents a discourse analysis of the biographical narratives that scholars from different disciplines—including mathematics, computer science, economics and archaeology—articulated during qualitative research interviews. The analysis illustrates how these narratives allowed the interviewees to identify themselves as members of specific disciplinary communities, having the personal traits these require, and emphasizing or playing down their interdisciplinary moves accordingly. The findings suggest that individuals’ biographical narratives deserve careful attention because they contribute to the establishment, reproduction and maintenance of academic disciplines. Consequently, they have the potential to make the narratives that constitute the ‘core’ of a discipline become, little by little, more heterogeneous.

scholarly journals Data Infrastructures in Ecology: An Infrastructure Studies Perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Millerand ◽  
Karen S. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Scientific Practices ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Data Infrastructures ◽  
Infrastructure Studies

The development of information infrastructures that make ecological research data available has increased in recent years, contributing to fundamental changes in ecological research. Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the subfield of Infrastructure Studies, which aims at informing infrastructures’ design, use, and maintenance from a social science point of view, provide conceptual tools for understanding data infrastructures in ecology. This perspective moves away from the language of engineering, with its discourse on physical structures and systems, to use a lexicon more “social” than “technical” to understand data infrastructures in their informational, sociological, and historical dimensions. It takes a holistic approach that addresses not only the needs of ecological research but also the diversity and dynamics of data, data work, and data management. STS research, having focused for some time on studying scientific practices, digital devices, and information systems, is expanding to investigate new kinds of data infrastructures and their interdependencies across the data landscape. In ecology, data sharing and data infrastructures create new responsibilities that require scientists to engage in opportunities to plan, experiment, learn, and reshape data arrangements. STS and Infrastructure Studies scholars are suggesting that ecologists as well as data specialists and social scientists would benefit from active partnerships to ensure the growth of data infrastructures that effectively support scientific investigative processes in the digital era.

scholarly journals Assessing Interdisciplinary Research in the Social Sciences: Are we on the right track?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Eykens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Research Assessment ◽  
Seven Principles ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right

In this chapter we first discuss how interdisciplinarity is perceived in research policy making and in applied bibliometric research. We put forward a processual view on disciplines and interdisciplinarity in the social sciences which emphasizes the changing nature of disciplines and the heterogeneity of individual fields. This view challenges the current status quo in the development of bibliometric indicators as well as qualitative research assessment exercises. We propose a stance in which the focus is shifted to the changing dynamics of the social sciences in order to develop a better understanding of interdisciplinarity. We point out that the cognitive and socio-cultural diversity of disciplines makes it difficult to transfer current disciplinary peer review practices to the evaluation of interdisciplinarity. We reiterate seven principles proposed by Klein which might guide more appropriate evaluation practices suitable for the assessment of interdisciplinarity in the social sciences.

scholarly journals Tverrfaglig forskningsstøtte - et FagSosioTeknisk grenseobjekt

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-103
Author(s):  
Nini Ebeltoft ◽  
Pål Magnus Lykkja ◽  
Alte Wehn Hegnes
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Academic Staff ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Research Library ◽  
Boundary Object ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Main Research

It is widely acknowledged that interdisciplinary research is required for adequately addressing global challenges. This article explores what interdisciplinary research implies for research libraries assisting such work, and for researchers receiving support. The main research question is: In what manner is interdisciplinary research support shaped and constructed as a result of contact and collaboration between researchers and the research library? Along with document studies, 15 semi-structured interviews have been conducted involving academic staff at the University of Oslo (UiO) and librarians at the UiO research library. Theoretical insight from the fields of Library and Information Science and Science and Technology Studies are combined using Boundary Objects (BO) as an analytical concept. In analysing empirical data, two dual-level competencies and library practices are identified: those that are technical and librarian, and those that are academically-professional and socio-emotional. In the junctions between these, interdisciplinary research support appears as a boundary object characterized as SubjectSocioTechnical. Collaboration and support for interdisciplinary research call for a complex of competencies, primarily because various support practices must be tailored to fit researchers’ disciplines and needs.

scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Chris Foulds
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Background Context

AbstractThis chapter provides background context on the calls for doing (more) interdisciplinarity and explains our own positioning as to what interdisciplinarity actually is, as well as what we believe this book contributes to the study of said interdisciplinarity. Specifically, we discuss mainstream arguments for why interdisciplinary research is deemed to be a worthwhile endeavour by many researchers, policymakers, funders, and so on. We build on this by arguing that there is a unique—and currently under-fulfilled—role to be played by Science and Technology Studies (STS) in exploring the sociological dimensions of how large-scale (energy) research projects are actually carried out. Alongside these wider landscape discussions, we explain what this book contributes to the study of interdisciplinarity and to energy research, through our empirics and STS-inspired ideas. We also make clear how we define interdisciplinarity and disciplines and explain how we focus on problem-focused research that may (or may not) involve external stakeholders.

scholarly journals A comparative ethnographic study of collective knowledge brokering across the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic knowledge boundaries in applied health research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Waring ◽  
Jenelle Clarke ◽  
Rob Vickers
Keyword(s):  
Health Research ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Maturity Model ◽  
Knowledge Brokering ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Brokers ◽  
Applied Health Research

Background: Knowledge brokers facilitate the creation, sharing and use of knowledge among different research, policy and practice communities. This paper examines the way collective knowledge brokering can address the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic boundaries that separate research and practice communities.<br />Methods: A comparative ethnographic study of three applied health research projects, each researching the implementation of clinical interventions into healthcare practice. Data was collected through in-depth non-participant observations, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis with each project team and associated practice stakeholder communities.<br />Findings: The study describes how ‘core’ project teams and ‘peripheral’ stakeholder groups can be differentiated as relatively bounded epistemic communities. It also identifies both ‘designated’ and ‘non-designated’ knowledge brokers as working within and between these communities. Through comparing the life cycles of these projects, the study identifies the individual and collective brokering activities involved in sharing knowledge among these communities.Discussion: The study reaffirms the idea that it is challenging for a single broker to undertake all brokering tasks, and that knowledge sharing is achieved through sequential and parallel forms of collective knowledge brokering. Furthermore, different brokering strategies are needed to address the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic boundaries that separate epistemic communities. The paper proposes a maturity model of collective knowledge brokering.

Research Policy and Review 22. Environment—Behaviour—Design Research: An Agenda for the Third World

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-434
Author(s):  
B A Chokor
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Third World ◽  
Culturally Relevant ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Environmental Design ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Third World ◽  
National Environmental

Interdisciplinary research into people and environmental settings in the Third World is only beginning to develop, but without an appropriate focus. An agenda of study and major issues that should inform research are outlined in this paper. It is demonstrated that fruitfulness of research in the Third World lies in the identification of culturally relevant form and unit of space of study, as well as of the contexts in which various environmental appraisals are to be made. Both issues are identified and described. It is advocated that appropriate environmental research associations be formed, on regional and international levels, to coordinate and stimulate further research relevant to national environmental design policy.

scholarly journals Calculating the ‘Price’ of Infrastructure Reliability in Finland

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Antti Silvast ◽  
Chris Foulds
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Statistical Modelling ◽  
End Users ◽  
Large Energy ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Electricity Supply ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Energy Research ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Interdisciplinary Projects

AbstractThis final empirical chapter demonstrates how our Science and Technology Studies–inspired line of enquiry is also of use for considering the processes underlying and subsequent outcomes of large energy research projects, which have more conventional, monodisciplinary ambitions, and methodological tools, in comparison to the intentionally interdisciplinary projects discussed in Chaps. 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_2 and 10.1007/978-3-030-88455-0_3. Specifically, in this chapter, we explore a Finnish research project that aimed to study how much reliable electricity supply is ‘worth’ to the energy end-users, by assigning this reliability a financial price. Through discussing the experiences and outcomes of this project, we make clear how this reliability ‘price’ was translated and moved between survey studies, statistical modelling, and the needs of the energy industries and market regulatory profession. We conclude with direct discussion of how this chapter connects to the wider, interdisciplinary issues pertinent to this book, including boundary objects, the impacts of funding, epistemic cultures, and the importance of disciplines, and the implications of these for improving the understanding of technical and economic research projects that sit between vital public problems.

Innovation in policy-making for big science: a cultural analysis of interdisciplinary research in China’s biotechnology industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 495-508
Author(s):  
Kai Wang ◽  
Ying Wang ◽  
Yun Ma ◽  
Sutian Xu
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Biotechnology Industry ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Big Science ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Big science has become a new normative standard in transforming science policy with the interdisciplinary research (IDR) pattern serving as an organizational strategy in scientific inquiries. This paper aims to show how policy-making is organized in the real situation of the R&D sectors for this trend. Design/methodology/approach Cultural theory and new institutionalism are tinkered for a close examination of the ways in which IDR has been enacted and implemented in BGI Group, an exemplar of big science and leading biotechnology research facility in China, by interrogating institutional cultures in the context of big science projects, whilst investigating how IDR is evolved against the specific social process of interaction. Findings The findings include that the IDR has profoundly influenced how scientific knowledge is produced, the social interactions between stakeholders and the innovation of research policy within the network of China’s biotechnology industry. Originality/value Advances in biotechnology and related fields are redrafting China’s hi-tech industry development and governance landscape. This is the first empirical study of innovation in R&D management for big science project as presented by the IDR pattern in the BGI. It makes an important contribution to the understanding of both the nature of China’s biotechnology industry governance practices and the culture of scientific innovation within which the IDR mediates social interactions and thereby the policy-making process.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document