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Interdisciplinary Research (Interdisciplinarity)

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Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Synonyms

Cross-disciplinarity; Multidisciplinarity

Introduction

From the beginning, the discourse on interdisciplinarity (ID) was “a discourse on innovation in knowledge production” (Weingart 2000: 30). Its basic objective has been to make science and higher education more responsive to the complexity of life-world problems and more relevant for the public good and the legitimate needs of the society. The criticism leveled in the name of ID against the disciplinary organization of the traditional universities was summarized under the oft-cited catchphrase “Communities have problems, universities departments” (CERI 1982: 127).

The term interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary research (ID) can be defined in two distinct but intersecting ways: interdisciplinarity means either the collaboration of researchers trained in different fields of knowledge or the integration of different concepts, methods, and data from two or more different disciplines, no matter if this interdisciplinary...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies (IFF), Institute for Science Communication and Higher Education Research (WIHO), Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria

    Markus Arnold

Authors
  1. Markus Arnold
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Correspondence to Markus Arnold .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Systems and Technology, Management, European Union Research Center, GWU School of Business, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Elias G. Carayannis

Section Editor information

  1. Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies, Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt, Vienna, Austria

    David F. J. Campbell

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Arnold, M. (2020). Interdisciplinary Research (Interdisciplinarity). In: Carayannis, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15347-6_302

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