Professionals who are strongly grounded in a

professionals who are strongly grounded in a particular discipline and, having
satisfaction in terms of scientific curiosity and recognition by their peers, have
become adventurers
• professionals who are strongly grounded in a particular discipline and might like
to stay in it, but who feel forced to get involved in other disciplines because their
own discipline is becoming obsolete and non-marketable
• people who had some rather superficial training in one or more disciplines, who
now find that they can get work and consequent recognition as generalists
• people who have moved into managerial, sales or other essentially bridge
positions, but have not been prepared to fulfil a bridge role.
He concludes that the first category professionals will tend to be the most active and
creative. Category 2 will be less enthusiastic. Category 3 is best used in organisation or
marketing rather than project generation or management. Category 4 tend to become
“the most serious obstacles” in interdisciplinary research.
Strathern (2005) speaks of the current hype surrounding interdisciplinarity and the
present requirement in research funding of having to write in interdisciplinarity. She calls
this “a perversion of something that could be valuable”. Academics’ interest and energy
are “based on hope, based on expectations, on anticipation, and these are all incredibly
important human attributes” (p. 134). One of the ways in which innovative research is
expected to be possible is by branching out and gathering from elsewhere. So a skill,
hope or anticipation that is very valuable is what gets hyped. The hyped version is in
consequence almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Interdisciplinarity: a literature review 30
3.5. Summary
The results of the OECD cross-national survey highlighting the origins, motives and
goals of interdisciplinarity as is practised in universities were reviewed in this section.
The views of other commentators on some of these topics were also discussed.
Writings on people engaged in interdisciplinary work and their personal motivations
were then reviewed.

Interdisciplinarity: a literature review 31
4. Interdisciplinary teaching and higher education policy
“The step from an appealing idea to an operational method is large indeed” (Karlqvist,
1999, p. 379). In the case of interdisciplinarity, finding the idea appealing is one thing, but
transferring the idea into pedagogy and teaching requires much more than an
understanding of the concept. The literature on various aspects of interdisciplinary
teaching – its definition, associated problems associated, goals, curriculum development
and teaching methods – are reviewed. Finally three case studies from the US, where
interdisciplinary programmes are widely embedded in institutions, are presented.