Dive Brief:
- Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development and the director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, says multidisciplinary research is bad for junior faculty, even though it has become a buzzword at institutions.
- Times Higher Education reports Goldin sees interdisciplinary research as hard to fund and hard to publish because research councils do not understand the work and few highly-ranked journals focus on interdisciplinary research.
- Goldin does not advocate disciplinary silos, and in fact says they contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, but he urges universities to use interdisciplinary research to build on work within each discipline, rather than replacing it.
Dive Insight:
At U.S. institutions cluster hiring has been getting more attention in recent years as a way to increase diversity on campus and break down silos across departments. Interdisciplinary teams are hired together and expected to work across their fields on joint projects. Before making these hires, however, institutions must consider their tenure and promotion policies so cluster hires do not feel overworked by bridging two departments or disadvantaged in career advancement.
When it comes to funding, interdisciplinary research seems to be getting a lot of attention in the United States. Wealthy donors and foundations want to fund “big idea” research that gets at global problems and crosses traditional disciplinary lines.
