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Disciplinary Diversity in Teams: Integrative Approaches from Unidisciplinarity to Transdisciplinarity

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Strategies for Team Science Success

Abstract

In this chapter we highlight research that illuminates the challenge of disciplinary diversity as well as research that describes effective responses to this challenge. After a few preliminary remarks, we unfold this challenge in three steps. First, we discuss the process of identifying relevant disciplinary resources. Second, we examine what it is for a team to be ready to marshal these resources in integrative, cross-disciplinary team science. Finally, we discuss the process of combining, or integrating, these resources in a research project.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For additional discussion of term meanings, see Boden (1999) and Huutoniemi et al. (2010) for interdisciplinarity and Carew and Wickson (2010) and Klein (2014) for transdisciplinarity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MSU Center for Interdisciplinarity, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Michael O’Rourke & Stephanie E. Vasko

  2. Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Michael O’Rourke

  3. Department of Philosophy and AgBioResearch, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Michael O’Rourke

  4. Department of Philosophy, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA

    Stephen Crowley

  5. Department of Community Sustainability, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Bethany Laursen

  6. Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Bethany Laursen

  7. Laursen Evaluation & Design, LLC, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

    Bethany Laursen

  8. Department of History, Political Science, and Philosophy, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Kingsville, TX, USA

    Brian Robinson

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  5. Stephanie E. Vasko
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Correspondence to Michael O’Rourke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Kara L. Hall

  2. Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research Sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD, USA

    Amanda L. Vogel

  3. Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

    Robert T. Croyle

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O’Rourke, M., Crowley, S., Laursen, B., Robinson, B., Vasko, S.E. (2019). Disciplinary Diversity in Teams: Integrative Approaches from Unidisciplinarity to Transdisciplinarity. In: Hall, K., Vogel, A., Croyle, R. (eds) Strategies for Team Science Success. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20992-6_2

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