Interdisciplinarity

Some 20 years after the pressure for the creation of the new interdisciplinary laboratories was first felt, one of the academics who became involved very early on. Prof. Rustum Roy of Pennsylvania State University, wrote eloquently about the underlying ideal of interdisciplinarity (Roy 1977). He also emphasised the supportive role played by some influential industrial scientists in that creation, notably Dr. Guy Suits of GE, whom we have already encountered, and Dr. William Baker of Bell Laboratories who was a major force in pushing for interdisciplinary materials research in industry and academe alike. A magisterial survey by Baker (1967), under the title Solid State Science and Materials Development, indicates the breadth and scope of his scientific interests. 

At this time, the interdisciplinarity of the materials field is being emphasized as much as the topic itself. Materials chemistry will bring to the academic chemistry community an excellent opportunity to practice what they often preach (or agree with) regarding the importance of interdisciplinarity, as they incorporate more courses from the materials science and physics departments as part of their requirements. 

Teich, Mikulas. Interdisciplinarity in J.J. Becher s thought. Hist European Ideas 9, no. 2 (1988) 145-160. 

Keywords Eco-labeling, Hydropower, Integrated concepts, Interdisciplinarity, Switzerland... 

Dalgaard, T., Hutchings, N.J. and Porter, J.R. 2003. Agroecology, scaling and interdisciplinarity. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 100 39-51. 

Centro de Quimica Estrutural, Complexo Interdisciplinar, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Av Rovisco Pais, 1096 Lisbon, Portugal... 

Importantly, such a procedure is of high interdisciplinarity and requires thorough understanding of the single components making up the device and also of the mutual interactions. 

For aspects of interdisciplinarity and the emergence of new disciplines, including agricultural chemistry and physical chemistry as case studies, see G. Lemaine et al. (eds.), Perspectives on the Emergence of Scien-... 

Finally, we shall return to the problem of the naming of the discipline. As we have seen, Staudinger named his field macromolecular chemistry to designate it as a new organic chemistry. Throughout his career, he did not venture to use the name macromolecular science. But, as the field acquired an interdisciplinary character, the latter name was adopted in some quarters as a natural extension of macromolecular chemistry. [45] Polymer science, which had the connotation of interdisciplinarity from the outset of its usage, had been employed by Mark and his followers decades before macromolecular science came into use. 

The chapter is organized as follows. We begin with a cautionary review of the current interest in—and rhetoric on—interdisciplinarity in the context of the new discourses on science,3 which stress the need for science to be legitimated by producing explicit social benefits. Second, we briefly review various approaches to the assessment of interdisciplinarity and present the conceptual framework and methodology of this investigation. Third, we show and discuss the empirical results and, finally, we summarize the findings. 

Since the early 1990s there has been a boom in the (self-reported) adoption of interdisciplinarity by both scientists and policy makers.4 Occurrences of the term interdisciplinary in scientific papers increased fivefold in 15 years, from 550 per year in 1993 to more than 3100 in 2007.1 Policy reports have highlighted the importance of interdisciplinarity for strategic technologies such as nanotechnology.5 There has been a... 

While this enshrinement of interdisciplinarity as a positive scientific norm may today seem natural, we should remember that it runs contrary to the beliefs of the early twentieth century ... 

In our view, there are three questions that need to be raised with regard to the degree and type of interdisciplinarity of a field ... 

The questions apply equally to enquiry into interdisciplinarity of organizations, but for the purposes of this chapter, we will focus on research fields, themes, or topics. 

Since the aim of this chapter is to provide a general outlook on interdisciplinarity in hybrid nanomaterials, we have focused our efforts on the knowledge structure and briefly touched upon the drivers for integration, both of which can be explored using bibliographic data. An exploration of the interdisciplinary practices (e.g., collaborations or recruitment) falls beyond the scope of this investigation. 

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