Interdisciplinary Scholar – A 21st Century Term for Renaissance Man

[con't] I believe the teaming of life and physical scientists will engender the most remarkable future advances. Other national groups working to facilitate interdisciplinary research include the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine and National Science Foundation.

My experience serving on an NIH panel that reviews applications for pre- and post-doctoral fellowships servers as a specific example. Of the more than 50 applications in the last review session, more than 40 contained the terms “interdisciplinary” or “multidisciplinary.” Skeptical readers are probably thinking that the high usage of these terms was merely a ploy to garner favor with the panel, but I can vouch for the fact that in the eight applications I reviewed in detail, all the research plans were definitely interdisciplinary. Also, each of the applications involved one or more collaborations with experts either at the applicant's university or at another institution.

Obviously a lot of emphasis is being placed on “interdisciplinary research,” but what does this term mean exactly? There are several views, and a precise definition is not easily obtained. One widely accepted working definition recently presented by the National Academies is “Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research ... that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.” Although quite a load of words, I think the key point is that information from multiple standard disciplines are integrated to solve a problem that otherwise would be insolvable.

Another important question is the place of standard disciplines and experts in a particular field in an interdisciplinary age. How important is depth of knowledge versus breadth of knowledge? In my view, having a deep and profound knowledge in one discipline is necessary but not sufficient. The second ingredient is the intellectual curiosity to have some knowledge of a wide range of subjects. Having both depth and breadth of knowledge enables a person to work effectively with others to tackle many of the big questions that must be answered to effect significant advances in either the life, physical or social sciences.

Can one person still make a significant advance? Yes, of course. However, in this case the person is likely to be either a genius or very lucky. Regular folks, like me, will need to join forces with others who have complementary skills and experience to address important questions. Another requirement that is not often mentioned is that working with others requires open, honest and collaborative interactions among the partners. Being able to play nicely together is needed far beyond grade school.

Scientists have spent many years in reducing the objects of their study to the smallest component parts. In the life sciences, organisms and cells were reduced to their constituents, e.g. proteins and genes, just as in the physical sciences, matter was reduced to atoms and then to electrons and quarks. Now the “important questions” that must be answered to understand energy and matter and cells and organisms require that broader, more interdisciplinary approaches be taken. For example, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Europe involves a dozen specialties and thousands of individuals collaborating to push back the frontiers of physics. An example in the life sciences is “Systems Biology,” which involves biochemists, molecular biologists, cell biologists and bioinformaticists (to name a few) is being taken to try to understand how all the components of a cell or organisms interact in a coordinated way to enable life.

Both the LHC and Systems Biology are quintessential examples of “interdisciplinary research.” However, research on much simpler levels also increasingly involves the efforts of several persons with complementary interests and expertise. This is very different from my research in graduate school some decades ago, and I know there are many who feel this trend is not good science. I must disagree. In the years since receiving my Ph.D., I have had many interdisciplinary collaborations that in fact turned out to be my most significant and enjoyable research experiences. I think the present generation of younger scientists and students will find this to be true as well.

To learn more about UMKC Interdisciplinary Ph.D., visit the IPHD website.