Interdisciplinarity on the high seas: the German research ship “Polarstern” in Antarctica
Image: dpa
Cross-disciplinary collaboration is much demanded and seldom achieved. What is necessary for it to remain more than a catchphrase? A conversation with Georg Schütte, Secretary General of the Volkswagen Foundation
Mr. Schütte, everyone is talking about interdisciplinarity and it now belongs in every application for third-party funding. Is the term inflationary used?
In fact I believe so. It also devalues it in a way. Interdisciplinarity is becoming a buzzword in application rhetoric and research funding, without being sufficiently spelled out in terms of content. It remains unclear how interdisciplinarity should actually be presented in the research process.
Can you give an example?
If you look into political statements on modern research funding, you will see the rhetorical figure that interdisciplinarity is necessary. Why? Because the innovations in science often no longer take place in the core of established disciplines, but on the fringes of these disciplines. And if you go to the edges, then you quickly see the references to other disciplines and you quickly come to the interdisciplinary aspect. However, it is often precisely this request for specification, for naming the disciplinary borders and interfaces, that is missing in the application conditions. It tends to stay with the empty phrase – and so applications are created that only address interdisciplinarity in empty phrases.