Abstract
Interdisciplinary research is often essential to develop the integrated systems understanding needed to manage complex environmental issues that are faced by decision-makers world-wide. The scientific, institutional and funding challenges to interdisciplinary research have been the subject of considerable discussion. Funders remain willing to support such research and to evaluate its impact. In this paper, we develop and apply a set of review concepts to systematically evaluate a large interdisciplinary research project. The project was conducted at a national research organisation that seeks to facilitate interdisciplinary integration. We categorise evaluation concepts as process- and outcome-related and propose five practical management interventions to bridge the concepts to improve interdisciplinary integration. These management interventions are: agree on a conceptual model, incorporate independent review, support synthesisers, foster intra-project communication, and build-in organisational learning. We end with reflections on lessons for the structure of research organisations and of the research team to develop effective interdisciplinary research as well as providing a set of recommendations for interdisciplinary research funders.
5. Discussion
Interdisciplinary research projects typically address complex societal problems and research may directly contribute to public policy debates. Yet evaluations of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research processes and outcomes are uncommon. In this paper, we evaluate a large interdisciplinary research project undertaken by the CSIRO in Australia. The evaluation itself provided opportunity to reflect on the: methodology, i.e. in-depth interviews with Project researchers, the ISRP, CSIRO management and the MDBA might have been useful; and the evaluation principles developed for medical research but with broader application. We propose that the evaluation criteria reviewed in Section 4 above can be grouped in two separate aspects of interdisciplinary research: “process” and “outcome”. We label principles 3–6 as process principles. These provide guidance on how to establish and maintain a productive collaborative environment for interdisciplinary research. An implicit assumption is that interdisciplinary research is more complex to manage than disciplinary research. Principles 1, 2 and 7 are suggested as outcome principles. These remind the evaluator that assessing the outcomes and ultimate impacts of interdisciplinary research involves understanding the range of research goals. Next, we propose four concrete examples of good practises from our case study assessment that can be implemented to connect process and outcome principles. These are: (1) developing a conceptual model, (2) supporting intra-project communication, (3) establishing independent review, and (4) supporting synthesisers. In addition, we suggest an important role for overarching organisational learning. See Fig. 5 for a schematic of the interventions bridging process and outcome principles.
