The role of funding agencies in creating interdisciplinary knowledge

Catherine Lyall, Ann Bruce, Wendy Marsden and Laura Meagher

Science and Public Policy, 2013, vol. 40, issue 1, 62-71

Abstract: The relationship between disciplines is strongly influenced by national funding agencies and a great deal of tacit knowledge about the management of interdisciplinary research programmes and projects is held by such bodies. Funders' support is critical to achieving the potential value-added of interdisciplinarity and these agencies have key roles to play, especially in shaping large-scale interdisciplinary initiatives. This paper reports on an empirical study and offers some lessons for public policy aimed at promoting learning and generating benefits that are broadly applicable across future efforts to tackle complex, multi-dimensional research challenges. There are key practical organisational steps that could be taken to promote and support collaborative working and integration for large-scale interdisciplinary research initiatives. Awareness of these critical processes can benefit funders as well as practitioners if interdisciplinary research is to achieve its full potential. Copyright The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/scipol/scs121 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:scippl:v:40:y:2013:i:1:p:62-71

Access Statistics for this article

Science and Public Policy is currently edited by Nicoletta Corrocher, Jeong-Dong Lee, Mireille Matt and Nicholas Vonortas

More articles in Science and Public Policy from Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().