News

Survey and pilot study on the institutional conditions for interdisciplinary research at SLU

Published: 05 September 2024

SLU researchers Jasmine Zhang and James Kurén Weldon have funding from SLU Future Food to conduct a survey and pilot study on the institutional conditions for interdisciplinary research at SLU. How do the departments encourage interdisciplinary collaborations, what are the barriers and thresholds? The study includes a questionnaire survey to understand how individual researchers at SLU experience institutional conditions for interdisciplinary research.

Jasmine and James have both participated in the Interdisciplinary Academy (IDA) and are passionate about interdisciplinarity. They are eager to contribute to better conditions at an institutional level, so that more researchers can engage in interdisciplinary collaborations.

– Everyone knows and talks about how important it is, but there are rarely opportunities to practically try out and discuss how things actually work. There are fundamental cultures and assumptions in all disciplines that affect how we communicate, understand, and collaborate with others, both within and outside of our 'own disciplines'. SLU has launched IDA, which is a very good initiative, but to continue strengthening interdisciplinarity, we need to understand how institutional structures and cultures support or hinder individual researchers' interest, motivation, and competence to conduct interdisciplinary research”, says Jasmine.

The survey

Are you SLU employee and would like to contribute to the survey? Find the questionnaire here: https://www.netigate.se/a/s.aspx?s=1231652X445623576X25788

 

Facts:

The Interdisciplinary Academy (IDA) at SLU was established 2022 and is run as a project by the NJ Faculty and SLU Future Food with the aim of building a long-term organisation for the development of cross-disciplinary research at SLU. The hope is that the programme will lead to increasing knowledge of, and interest in, cross-disciplinary research work, strengthen the ability to process research questions from a cross-disciplinary perspective, and facilitate cross-disciplinary research collaborations between different departments at SLU. The future development of IDA is managed in dialogue with SLU's other future platforms. To date, four IDA groups have been granted.

The NJ Faculty's strategy for 2021–2025 states that cross-disciplinary approaches should be part of the work to contribute to the transition to a sustainable society. The strategy states that the faculty will "strengthen the ability to process research questions from a cross-disciplinary perspective" and "facilitate cross-disciplinary research collaborations between different departments ".

SLU Future Food is a platform that stimulates and develops cross-disciplinary research and collaborations for economically, ecologically and socially sustainable food systems.