Introductory description

In an increasingly complex and changing world, researchers inside and outside the academy are constantly facing challenges that require collaborating and thinking across and beyond disciplinary boundaries. Interdisciplinary skills are said to improve not only creativity and critical thinking but also academic performance and employability.

But what is interdisciplinarity?

The module will combine an introduction to a range of theoretical and practical approaches to interdisciplinary research with a critical evaluation of the challenges and advantages of developing methods and approaches to work across and in-between disciplines. The discussion of cases and examples will play a core role.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Lecture themes:

Week 1: Introducing Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity

Week 2: Knowledge Infrastructures

Week 3: The Politics of Knowledge Making

Week 4: Governance

Week 5: Environment

Week 7: Data

Week 8: Participation

Week 9: Design

Week 10: What are the values of interdisciplinarity?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Take initiative in their own learning and development of critical, interdisciplinary insights.
• Design and develop structured responses, based on prior knowledge and experience, to interdisciplinary topics.
• Think critically about a particular area of interdisciplinary study, on which the student has elected to focus.
• Systematically evaluate and synthesise research in a particular area of study.
• Demonstrate their learning through a written, spoken and other formats.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Specific reading list for the module

Research element

Students will need to conduct a literature search to complete the assessment. They will also need to develop an original analysis of this literature.

Interdisciplinary

The subject of the module is interdisciplinarity, and will provide students with knowledge about different (inter-)disciplinary approaches to interdisciplinarity.

International

The approaches to interdisciplinarity discussed will include those that situate interdisciplinarity in relation to different national cultures of research, as well as considering the challenge to conducting international research, including those relating to language, data protection and issues of epistemic authority.

Subject specific skills

An advanced understanding of the values and practice of interdisciplinary research that will enable students to evaluate different claims to knowledge.

Transferable skills

An advanced understanding of different approaches to interdisciplinary practice that students can apply to conducting research in diverse social, disciplinary and professional contexts.