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Interdisciplinary research and education fueling innovation
Why breaking down silos and collaboration among higher education institutions can be key to solving global crises.
By Professor Dawn Freshwater, Vice-Chancellor, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Higher education has long been in lockstep with innovation. We must prepare students to innovate and support and drive research and innovation. In 2024, this drive to innovate is urgent.
We are in an innovation race, fuelled by the poly-crises we are confronting – climate change, climate justice, poverty, inequalities leading to food and water insecurity, ethical AI, and democratising health access.
Solutions to these crises can only be found through collaboration and cooperation. These attributes already shape higher education, but we must acknowledge an urgent need to do more.
Against this backdrop, higher education leaders gathered in Chennai for the QS India Summit earlier this month, focusing on unleashing the potential of partnerships and collaboration in Indian higher education.
Our context was India's 2020 National Education Policy. It embeds multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary policies in education and research. Our experience shows the innovative value of these approaches, yet they are challenging to deliver. The future requires us to implement novel and innovative practices to collaborate across traditional disciplines, emerging disciplines, and yet-to-emerge disciplines.
I am grateful to the colleagues who joined me for a panel discussion focused on interdisciplinary interactions.
Professor C Muthamizhchelvan, Vice-Chancellor of SRM Institute of Science and Technology, explained that India's challenge with interdisciplinary research is its siloed education system. “The rigid structure of the Indian education system, with its emphasis on compartmentalised learning and entrance exams, discourages interdisciplinary thinking. Structure is a barrier to implementing interdisciplinary programmes.”
Acknowledging India’s systemic challenges to breaking down silos, Sheffield University’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Koen Lamberts, explained that in seeking to address silos, his university focused on century-old structures within the university. “These structures reflect ways of working that were once perhaps right. But they are almost certainly not the best, not the most optimal way of working today.”
This meant Sheffield came to an obvious but uncomfortable conclusion. “If you want to change [the silos], then you have to ultimately be prepared to change the structure of your institution.” That impacts resource allocation, managing activity, dividing those activities, and ultimately guiding people towards certain behaviours. Professor Lamberts admitted, “That's hard to do.”
The difficulty is even more complex because our changing world requires different approaches to how institutions organise research and teaching. Disciplines no longer align research with teaching.
The Universities of Auckland, Queen Mary, Manchester, and Sheffield have established large-scale interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborative structures. Sheffield calls them ‘flagships’ while Manchester calls them ‘beacons.’
Manchester University’s Associate Vice-President of International, Professor Stephen Flint, told our audience that developing the five beacons took over a decade. Manchester’s experience is that multidisciplinary research occurs on what Professor Flint calls the research shop floor, with PhD students and their supervisors working closely together. “It's got to be, as we say, bottom up.”
Our discussion turned to teaching and the implications of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in research on student profiles. Are we moving to the age of a transdisciplinary graduate? There was a resounding ‘yes’ from Professor Melinda Fitzgerald, Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Curtin University. “We’re on a one-way path where all graduates are transdisciplinary.” For Curtin, this takes in key capabilities: innovative, creative and entrepreneurial; culturally competent; globally engaged and responsive; effective communicators with digital competence; and industry-connected and career capable.
However, there are challenges for our students. In many parts of the world, including India and the United Kingdom, the compulsory sector narrows students' areas of study. It means they are ill-prepared when they reach university and a transdisciplinary learning environment. Yet, as Professor Colin Bailey, President and Principal of Queen Mary University, observed, AI is leading the way. "We teach all our students the use of AI across all the discipline areas. The development of AI is multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary."
AI is fanning the urgent flames of innovation, and its interdisciplinary origins are now directing higher education.
University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater moderated this panel. She thanks her colleagues for their contributions.