The Power of Peer Review on Transdisciplinary Discovery

Abstract

This study examines the tension between the academic evaluation system and the development of unconventional research agendas. While scholars have studied the evaluation of research that crosses disciplinary boundaries from the perspective of peer reviewers, they have paid comparatively little attention to the experiences of the performers of unconventional science. This study asks how researchers develop unconventional research agendas to address a long-standing health problem and, in the process, make sense of the actions of a site visit committee organized to advise a foundation funding the project. This study develops a process narrative on the development of a specific transdisciplinary team proposing to study premature birth. The findings show that when the performers and the evaluators of unconventional science developed competing understandings of the research agenda, transdisciplinary discovery became limited as a particular research topic became taboo. Yet, the study also reveals how the performers of unconventional science challenged the power of the site visit committee by making it seem as though they followed the committee’s decisions. These findings raise questions about the role of private foundations as funders of academic research and the suitability of traditional evaluation procedures for assessing transdisciplinary discovery.

Two hearts beating in a research centers’ chest: how scholars in interdisciplinary research settings cope with monodisciplinary deep structures

“…These research centers facilitate interdisciplinary researchfor example, by providing intellectual openness within departments (Lattuca 2002), establishing policies like joint appointments or special assessment and recruitment procedures (Porter et al 2006), or installing interdisciplinary units (Sá 2008) (see Hellström, Brattström, and Jabrane [2018] for an overview). Despite these facilitations of interdisciplinary outcomes, however, the operative core of research centers is still 'disciplined' by demands from the scientific field: Staff hiring processes, career promotions, funding decisions, scientific publishing and academic prize-giving are based on peer-review procedures that tend to favor monodisciplinary research (Donina, Seeber, and Paleari 2017;Rhoten and Parker 2004;Mäkinen 2019).…”

“…Research has usually focused either on meso-or group-levels and more on the Anglo-American context than on the European one (Donina, Seeber, and Paleari 2017). In the light of these gaps, current studies stress the importance of investigating micro-level experiences of the relationship between monodisciplinary field-level demands and interdisciplinary research agendas (Felt et al 2016;Hessels and van Lente 2008;Kaplan, Milde, and Cowan 2017;Mäkinen 2019).…”

“…In addition to the 'cognitive divide between disciplines' (Kaplan, Milde, and Cowan 2017), traditional research governance poses challenges to interdisciplinary research (Mäkinen 2019;Whitley 1984). During peer-review procedures academic peers evaluate research in terms of its relevance, originality, methodological correctness, and plausibility (Chubin and Hackett 1990).…”

The Patterning of Collaborative Behavior and Knowledge Culminations in Interdisciplinary Research Centers

“…The task of interdisciplinary research centers is not easy, however. Academic knowledge production tends to occur within disciplinary paradigms where scholars solve puzzles according to established frameworks (e.g., Abbott 2001;Knorr-Cetina 1999;Kuhn 1970;Mäkinen 2019). Moreover, many issues can arise related to facilitating, promoting, defining, and assessing interdisciplinary collaboration (Aldrich 2014;Lindvig and Hillersdal 2019).…”

“…Scholars may face cognitive challenges, time pressure, and lack of support from their institutions (McBee and Leahey 2016). At the level of collaborative interactions, scholars' different styles of thought, standards, research traditions, techniques, and languages can be difficult to translate across disciplinary domains (Knorr-Cetina 1999;Kagan 2009;Mäkinen 2019).…”