Interdisciplinary scholars often lack sufficient standing in the university hierarchy to hold on to their funding, with resources, incentives and structures to support such work suffering as a result, according to a survey of leading research universities.
The 23-member League of European Research Universities (LERU) agreed in 2016 on an ideal of interdisciplinarity in universities. Two researchers have looked back at their progress since then, finding plenty of room for improvement in efforts needed to facilitate such work.
Jane Ohlmeyer, a professor of modern history at Trinity College Dublin, said universities were not yet matching their stated intentions with resources, although they were “beginning” to do so. A common issue is that grant funding won by interdisciplinary academics and centres is lost to other parts of the university, she said.
“Not enough goes down on the ground to incentivise behaviours, whether it’s the faculty siphoning if it off or the institution itself siphoning it off. That proportion needs to go to support early careers,” she explained, because postdocs in multidisciplinary research centres were doing “the most meaningful” interdisciplinary work.
