The ‘paradox of interdisciplinarity’ in Australian research governance

Abstract

This paper identifies what can be called the 'paradox of interdisciplinarity' (Weingart 2000) in Australian higher education research governance and explores some of its constitutive dimensions. In the Australian context, the paradox of interdisciplinarity primarily concerns the proliferation of a programmatic discourse of interdisciplinarity in government reports and government policy and strategy documents, often tied to notions of innovation and applicability, parallel to the persistence or even reinforcement of modes of governance and associated mechanisms that almost exclusively rely on rigid discipline-based classification systems to evaluate and fund research. Two interrelated dimensions of this apparent paradox are discussed. First, the conceptions of knowledge that underpin the use of notions of disciplinarity as well as interdisciplinarity in Australian government reports and policy and strategy papers are analysed. Second, an analysis of the Australian research governance system and its underlying mechanisms is presented, as they pertain to interdisciplinary forms of research. On the basis of these analyses, it is concluded that there is a significant mismatch between the discourse of interdisciplinarity and associated conceptions of knowledge on the one hand, and current, relatively inflexible governmental research funding and evaluation practices on the other. It is finally proposed that the occurrence and perpetuation of such a mismatch in the Australian context can only be understood properly if placed in the context of a more general paradox of 4 research governance, where a politically charged rhetoric of innovation conflicts with the actual trend toward an increasingly diminishing scope for the selforganisation of knowledge.

Too little and too much trust: performance measurement in Australian higher education

“…Finally, in the Netherlands, the actors responsible for the evaluation process also have some leeway in adapting the evaluation process in a way that reflects specific disciplinary traditions, or, for that matter, interdisciplinary research approaches (KNAW -Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009, p. 6). This flexibility with regard to interdisciplinary research in particular is significantly restricted in the Australian environment with its stronger focus on rigid disciplinary classifications and one-size-fits-all templates (see Woelert & Millar, 2013).…”

An early career perspective on encouraging collaborative and interdisciplinary research in ecology

“…). This has been dubbed the paradox of interdisciplinarity (Woelert and Millar ) and is often explained by the difficulties in selecting review panels that are adequately qualified to review all parts of an interdisciplinary proposal (Boix Mansilla et al. , Record et al.…”

“…Developing such ventures may be a risky investment as, despite the widespread acknowledgment of the importance of interdisciplinary research, funding is often less likely to be granted (Bromham et al 2016). This has been dubbed the paradox of interdisciplinarity (Woelert and Millar 2013) and is often explained by the difficulties in selecting review panels that are adequately qualified to review all parts of an interdisciplinary proposal (Boix Mansilla et al 2006, Record et al 2016. From an individual perspective, researchers may risk burnout trying to juggle the demands of large, globalized peer networks (Caretta et al 2018), as well as isolating themselves from their core field, jeopardizing their career prospects (Jones 2010).…”

Interdisciplinary research has consistently lower funding success

“…The lack of clear definitions and objective analyses is an impediment to evaluating the relative success of interdisciplinary proposals 1 . Conflicting findings have been reported using a range of approaches 4 , and most studies of funding success of interdisciplinary research have selected only a sample of proposals for evaluation 15,16 . What is needed is a measure of the degree to which a proposal spans many different disciplines, independent of use of words such as 'interdisciplinarity' and without relying on cited publication data.…”