Collaboration, creativity, conflict and chaos: doing interdisciplinary sustainability research
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SPECIAL FEATURE: CASE REPORT Exploring Interactions among the Sustainable Development Goals: Case Studies from Three Continents
Collaboration, creativity, conflict and chaos: doing interdisciplinary sustainability research Rose Cairns1 · Sabine Hielscher1 · Ann Light1 Received: 15 January 2019 / Accepted: 6 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract How do the social dynamics within interdisciplinary research teams shape sustainability research? This paper presents a case study of interdisciplinary research projects at the University of Sussex, as part of a programme aimed at encouraging collaborative work to address intersections between the Sustainability Development Goals. Using data gathered during a series of participatory workshops at the start and end of the projects, combined with non-participant observation and analysis of project discussions during the lifetime of the projects, we examine the diverse ways in which research teams configure themselves to navigate the terrain of interdisciplinary sustainability research and the kinds of social and discursive dynamics that shape projects. In particular, we relate the emergence of distinct project team configurations to diverse problem framings, and aspirations for collaboration within these teams. We examine some of the challenges facing researchers attempting to work in these ways, and explore implications of these dynamics for knowledge production for sustainability. We conclude by drawing out and addressing some of the challenges for institutions funding and supporting interdisciplinary sustainability research. Keywords Interdisciplinarity · SDGs · Collaboration · Integration · Higher education
Introduction Interdisciplinarity has become a powerful ‘buzzword’ in contemporary academia and science policy (Cairns and Krzywoszynska 2016; Cornwall and Brock 2005), a term that is often accepted as a ‘good thing’ and which acts as a password to securing funding and influence; meanwhile, it often remains somewhat opaque what is actually done under its auspices. The intractability of complex sustainability challenges, and, in recent decades a narrative of ‘grand challenges’ (Kaldewey 2018) such as climate change, global poverty, and biodiversity loss, have been important drivers of increasing interest in interdisciplinarity, to the extent that contemporary usage of the term is sometimes synonymous with ‘problem solving’ (Goyette 2016), and it is now Handled by John Thompson, Institute of Development Studies, United Kingdom. * Ann Light [email protected] 1
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
common to see interdisciplinarity stated as prerequisite for research funding (Buller 2009). More broadly, the prominence of discourses of interdisciplinarity can be understood as part of a longstanding debate about the need for greater accountability in publicly funded science (Nowotny et al. 2002), and an awareness of the role that scientific knowledge and technological innovation can have in driving problems as well as helping to solve them (Owen et al. 2012).
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