Course info

The course is fully booked! Please sign up at the waiting list. 

For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration, Katrine Søndergaard kes@adm.aau.dk.

Description: Many PhD projects at Aalborg University are ‘born interdisciplinary’. Equally, there is an increasing value attached to the interdisciplinary theme in the research funding community and public debate. Regardless hereof the tools and skills for thinking about interdisciplinary research designs has not been addressed and developed sufficiently amongst PhD students. The course is therefore motivated by this gap. It targets all PhD students with projects that are interdisciplinary either as a key feature of their initial design (‘born interdisciplinary’), or the ones that incrementally moves towards this as a function of an emerging awareness to the importance of an expanded research design during the process (‘becoming interdisciplinary’). Next to this existing gap in interdisciplinary research skills the course is motivated by an observation made over several years, namely that different scientific disciplines only is one level of needed cross-fertilization. Another is the ability to move more effortless across different methods, either in order to triangulate, or simply because of the nature of the research question. The so-called ‘problem-based-learning’ (PBL) research model need to take an interdisciplinary approach that includes actual scientific disciplines and their theoretical and conceptual apparatuses, as well as the multitude of methods of relevance to complex and real-life research questions. Finally, the course is motivated by an interest in bringing such an increased interdisciplinary awareness and skill-development in sync with the requirements for contemporary research dissemination and communication.

Learning objectives: The main learning objective is that the PhD student becomes able to identify the relevant dimensions of interdisciplinary research design in her or his own project (either as what is there from the outset (‘born’) or what might be implemented during the research process (‘becoming’). Next, participants must be able to develop a motivated and well-argued plan for any interdisciplinary research design proposal amendments.  

Key Literature: Some of the key literature within Interdisciplinary research is set as the curriculum (see below). However, given the critical and explorative nature of the course we shall also look into readings that may look less obvious, but which have the critical creative potential for stimulating new ideas and thoughts.

Bark, R. H., M. E. Kragt & B. J. Robson (2016) Evaluating an interdisciplinary research project: Lessons learned for organisations, researchers and funders, International Journal of Project Management, 34 (2016) 1449–1459

Barry, A., G. Born & G. Weszkalnys (2008) Logics of interdisciplinarity, Economy and Society, 37:1, 20-49

Benson, T. C. (1982) Five Arguments Against Interdisciplinary Studies, Issues in Integrative Studies No.1 38-48

Committee on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research, Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (2004) Facilitating interdisciplinary research. National Academies. Washington: National Academy Press

Darbellay, F. (2012) The circulation of knowledge as an interdisciplinary process: Travelling concepts, analogies, and metaphors, Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies 30, 1-18

Jessop, B. & N. Sum (2001) Pre-disciplinary and Post-disciplinary Perspectives, New Political Economy, January 89-101

Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 3-33

Latour, B. (1988) Mixing Humans and Nonhumans together: The Sociology of a Door-Closer, Social Problems, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 298-310

Menken, S. & M. Keestrea (2016) An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research. Theory & Practice, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (KEY READING!)

Pedersen, D. B. & R. Hvidtfeldt (2021) Literature review on funding and composition of interdisciplinary research and innovation teams, Science Diplomacy, Report

Rigney, D. (2001) The Metaphorical Society. An Invitation to Social Theory, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 1-12 (chapter one: The Metaphorical Imagination)

Sayer, A. (2000) For Postdisciplinary Studies: Sociology and the Curse of Disciplinary Parochialism/Imperialism, in J. Eldridge, J. MacInnes, S. Scott, C. Warhurst and A. Witz (eds) (2000) For Sociology: Legacies and Prospects, Durham: Sociology Press, pp. 83-91

Schön, D. A. (1993) Generative Metaphor: a perspective on problem-setting in social policy, In A. Ortony (ed.) Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 137-163

Silvast, A. & C. Foulds (2022) Sociology of Interdisciplinarity. The Dynamics of Energy Research, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 91-120 (chapter 5)