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

Hendrik Woiwode and Anna Froese

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2021, vol. 46, issue 11, 2230-2244

Abstract: Interdisciplinary research is a popular mode of knowledge production that becomes intensively promoted by research centers all across the globe. Despite the facilitation of interdisciplinary research, however, scholars working in these centers are ‘disciplined.’ Career promotions, funding decisions and scientific publishing are based on peer-review procedures that tend to favor monodisciplinary research. This paper builds on a qualitative study with scholars in interdisciplinary research centers in Germany and asks how scholars cope with these monodisciplinary demands. After deriving a conceptual framework, the study identifies four coping strategies: disciplinary innovation, strategic compliance, niche-seeking, and field creation. Each of these strategies is characterized by a different degree of openness to knowledge bases of other disciplines and a different degree of proactivity towards monodisciplinary demands from the scientific field. The results illuminate how research agendas become disciplined despite interdisciplinary motivation and organizational support of interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: interdisciplinarity; higher education; governance; management of research centers; coping strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:218873

DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2020.1716321

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