Time is needed for raising non-trivial sociological and technological collaborations in research: scientists’ views on interdisciplinarity approaches

Abstract

The complexity of contemporary social problems requires innovative responses that combine knowledge from various fields. To attain this objective it is necessary to conduct interdisciplinary research, promoting the meeting of researchers from different scientific fields at the borders, or even across borders, of their branches of knowledge to form novel ones. In addition to constituting new-fangled areas, as new interdisciplinary research practices proliferate, they have the potential for bringing about innovative questions. These are complex issues that spill over into the laboratory. They entail a large number of variables, and problems that no field of research is prepared to resolve. Health, mobility, climate change, or the pandemic crisis are examples of epistemological innovation that only interdisciplinary approaches can attempt to address. The paper’s empirical section is based on the analysis of information provided by a survey made in Portugal, involving scientists from various fields of work. It highlights what scientists think about the conditions in which interdisciplinarity is possible, and the insitutional and policy changes they identify as being needed to tackle with complex societal problems. The results point out a widespread common understanding of the relevance to foster interdisciplinarity among all fields of work, giving account of specific measures that may contibutte for bettering interdisciplinary work at the research settings, adaptaed to create a sustainbale, and fair future.