The Interdisciplinary
Imperative
The Interdisciplinary
Imperative
Rustum Roy, one of the nation's leading materials scientists, found, and directed for 23 years, Penn State University's best known interdisciplinary units: the Materials Research Laboratory and the degree programs in "Solid State Technology" and "Science, Technology, and Society." He has actively participated in National and State science policy-making for 35 years.
"Interdisciplinarity" is perhaps the most used keyword in describing changes in current patterns of Federal funding. However, it is not a new idea—the interdisciplinary theme has been tried for over forty years. Yet, until now, there has been no major effort in evaluating how effective either the selection processes involved or the performance has been. This book is the report on the "Interdisciplinarity Revisited: Materials Research as a Case Study" Conference, convened on August 31-September 1, 1999 at the Pennsylvania State University. The contributors included the world's leading practitioners in the field of interdisciplinary materials research, from all major research-active countries. In addition, the most prominent interdisciplinary thrusts in other areas, from Science, Technology, and Society to medicine, were represented by senior practitioners. The key findings include the following: The entire research enterprise demands and is moving toward "interactive research" (Interactive includes inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional, and inter-sectoral research); The university world has, by and large, failed to organize itself to respond to this new reality; Specific hindrances to I3R are the traditional peer review process and academic intellectual property practices; New directions proposed include: funding largely on past performance and matching fund strategies.
Financial Support was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.