Interdisciplinary Research Design (2025)

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

Interdisciplinary Resarch Design (2025)

Description: Many PhD projects 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.

Prerequisites: Master eduction (since this is an interdisciplinary course there is of course no requirement to have a particular background).

Learning objectives: The main goal is for the participants to be able to reflect upon their own PhD project and how it might either be 'born' interdisciplinary or 'become' interdisciplinary. By appropriating the course readings and understanding the cases presented in the course, the key learning objective is to increase the participant's level of reflexivity when it comes to understanding their own projects in light of the theme of interdisciplinarity.

Teaching methods: Lectures, workshops, one-on-one 'critical friend' dialouges, and written assignment (the latter is optional).

Criteria for assessment: Active participation during the lectures, workshops and dialouges for the 2,5 ECTS credit. Additionally it is possible to write a short reflection report on a topic related to the course and one's thesis project to get 4 ECTS credits instead.

Literature: 

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

Charalambous, E. & Z. Djebbara (2023) On natural attunement: Shared rhythms between the brain and the environment, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 155 (2023) 105438, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763423004074

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

Djebbara, Z., L. B. Fich, L. Petrini & K. Gramann (2019) Sensorimotor brain dynamics reflect architectural affordances, PNAS 2019, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1900648116

Jensen, O. B. (2024) What If?/What Now? “Futuring” Mobilities Research by engaging with Design, Transfers, vol. 13, no. 1/2, pp. 128-143

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

Madan, N., N-C Ristea, R. T. Ionescu, K. Nasrollahi, F. S. Khan, T. B. Moeslund & M. Shah (2022) Self-Supervised Masked Convolutional Transformer Block for Anomaly Detection, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PATTERN ANALYSIS AND MACHINE INTELLIGENCE, VOL. 14, NO. 8, AUGUST 2022, 2209.12148v2 1.pdf

Madan, N., M. S. N. Siemon, M. K. Gjerde, B. S. Petersson, A. Grituzas, M. A. Esbensen, I. A. Nikolov, M. P. Philipsen, K. Nasrollahi & T. B. Moeslund (2023) ThermalSynth: A Novel Approach for Generating Synthetic Thermal Human Scenarios, WACV 2023 Workshop

Menken, S. & M. Keestrea (2016) An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research. Theory & Practice, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 12-40 (chapter 1-5) and 110-118 (chapter 13)

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)

Organizer: Ole B. Jensen

Lecturers: Ole B. Jensen

ECTS: 2.5 (with the opportunity to increase to 4 ECTS by doing a post-course hand-in assignment)

Time: 12 - 14 May 2025

Place: Aalborg University Rendsburggade 14.4 room 3.529

Zip code: 9000

City: Aalborg

Maximal number of participants: 15

Deadline: 21 April 2025

Important information concerning PhD courses: 

There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course.

For external PhD students: This course is a general course and is prioritised for PhD Students enrolled at Aalborg University. If there are available seats, PhD students from other universities will be accepted. You will be notified shortly after the deadline if you have been accepted.

To attend courses at the Doctoral School in Medicine, Biomedical Science and Technology you must be enrolled as a PhD student.

We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course.