In theory, interdisciplinary collaboration breaks down artificial divisions between different departments, allowing more innovative and sophisticated research to flourish. But does it actually work this way? Investigating Interdisciplinary Collaboration puts the common beliefs about such research to the test, using empirical data gathered by scholars from the US, Canada, and the UK.

Foreword

Helga Nowotny
 

Preface

Scott Frickel, Mathieu Albert, and Barbara Prainsack
 

Introduction: Investigating Interdisciplinarities

Scott Frickel, Mathieu Albert, and Barbara Prainsack
 

Part I: Interdisciplinary Cultures and Careers
 

Chapter 1: New Directions, New Challenges: Trials and Tribulations of Interdisciplinary Research

Dave McBee and Erin Leahey
 

Chapter 2: The Frictions of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

Gregory J. Downey, Noah Weeth Feinstein, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Sigrid Peterson, and Chisato Fukuda
 

Chapter 3: Epistemic Cultures of Collaboration: Coherence and Ambiguity in Interdisciplinarity

Laurel Smith-Doerr, Jennifer Croissant, Itai Vardi, and Timothy Sacco
 

Chapter 4: Interdisciplinary Fantasy: Social Scientists and Humanities Scholars Working in Faculties of Medicine

Mathieu Albert, Elise Paradis, and Ayelet Kuper
 

Part II: Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity
 

Chapter 5: Some Dark Sides of Interdisciplinarity: The Case of Behavior Genetics

Aaron Panofsky
 

Chapter 6: A Dynamic, Multidimensional Approach to Knowledge Production

Ryan Light and jimi adams
 

Chapter 7: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Change in Six Social Sciences: A Longitudinal Comparison

Scott Frickel and Ali O. Ilhan
 

Part III: Changing Context of Interdisciplinary Research
 

Chapter 8: “An Electro-Historical Focus with Real Interdisciplinary Appeal”: Interdisciplinarity at Vietnam-Era Stanford

Cyrus C.M. Mody
 

Chapter 9: Interdisciplinarity Reloaded? Drawing lessons from “Citizen Science”

Barbara Prainsack and Hauke Riesch
 

Chapter 10: One Medicine? Advocating (Inter)disciplinarity at the Interfaces of Animal Health, Human Health and the Environment

Angela Cassidy
 

Notes on Contributors

SCOTT FRICKEL is an associate professor of sociology and environment and society at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He is author of Chemical Consequences: Environmental Mutagens and the Rise of Genetic Toxicology and coeditor of The New Political Sociology of Science and Fields of Knowledge.

MATHIEU ALBERT is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and a scientist in the Wilson Centre for Research in Education at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. 

BARBARA PRAINSACK is a professor in the department of social science, health and medicine at King’s College London in the United Kingdom. She is the author or coauthor of several books including Solidarity in Biomedicine and Beyond.