What is driving the new ‘interdisciplinary turn’? As Director of TORCH, an interdisciplinary research centre based in Oxford’s Humanities Division, my frequent conversations with global counterparts oscillate between gloom over global crises and excitement over our new interdisciplinary initiatives. These two subjects are closely related.
Several factors have driven interdisciplinarity’s current revivification, including an emphasis on holistic approaches to problem-solving which break down rigid disciplinary siloes; a desire to create a global community of scholars centred on altruistic urges; and the meteoric rise in AI, whose systemic pull across all fields forces us to think and work across disciplines.
Professor Christine Gerrard, Director of TORCH
As universities worldwide pledge to renew their civic mission and scale up their societal impact, they increasingly pin their faith on interdisciplinary research as the ‘magic bullet’ to solve major global challenges such as climate crisis, democratic stability and global health inequity.
Just a handful of recent examples include: Oxford University Press’s new online Intersections, short-form pieces from the global academic community around major global issues, launched via a webinar titled ‘The Power of Interdisciplinarity’; The Berlin University Oxford alliance has relaunched its collaborative calls around challenge-led interdisciplinary themes; The RSC’s Interdisciplinary Fellowships use interdisciplinarity to interrogate performance and practice; and Uppsala University has recently sponsored six new cross-disciplinary research teams. Likewise, many universities have adapted their taught courses to reflect interdisciplinary drives.
Interdisciplinarity is now a key priority for student and researcher engagement with society and culture. UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) recent cross research council pilot is confined to projects that ‘support interdisciplinary ideas emerging from the research community outside current disciplinary boundaries.’
So, can interdisciplinarity help save the world? And how can Oxford respond?
Interdisciplinarity is nothing new. It first came to prominence in the 1970s, redressing the narrow confines that had shaped the disciplinary structures of the modern research university since the turn of the twentieth century.
Several factors have driven interdisciplinarity’s current revivification, including an emphasis on holistic approaches to problem-solving which break down rigid disciplinary siloes; a desire to create a global community of scholars centred on altruistic urges; and the meteoric rise in AI, whose systemic pull across all fields forces us to think and work across disciplines.
Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI and the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) house experts from vastly different academic fields, ranging from Engineering to English. There is no doubting the range and reach of these institutes, yet Oxford still remains institutionally imprisoned by ‘disciplinary capture’. Arguably, our traditional single-subject degrees impede syllabus reform and intellectual risk-taking. Unlike the US, we currently offer few degree pathways combining STEM and humanities.
Professor Christine Gerrard
However Oxford’s historic DNA is profoundly interdisciplinary.
Oxford colleges have traditionally fostered rich informal connections between disciplines. Scientists, medics, mathematicians, linguists, musicians, historians and lawyers live, eat, and learn together.
In this spirit, Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey has introduced the Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium, promoting broad, creative thinking to respond to the challenges of our time and bringing together leading Oxford academics and interdisciplinary student teams to respond to big questions.
TORCH’s Environmental Humanities Research Hub has played a role in this new initiative. TORCH fosters interdisciplinary, outward-facing research through its cross-disciplinary Research Hubs such as Environmental Humanities, and Networks open to early career scholars who wish to collaborate across disciplines around a shared vision.
Twelve years in this space has taught TORCH that forming interdisciplinary collaborations is often hard and painstaking. For example, I’ve spent the last week trying to connect German and Oxford researchers divided by quantitative/scientific and creative methodological differences. Will we need a third party to bridge the gap?
Yet challenges like this bring opportunity.
Disagreements and debates open new perspectives on important issues, as we have seen in our new series TORCH Talks: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. ‘Climate Hope/Climate Despair’. Our first talk brought together Hannah Scott, CEO of Oxford Greentech, archaeologist Professor Shadreck Chirikure, German and Environmental Humanities scholar Professor Bernhard Malkmus, and biologist Jon Taylor, Director of Climate Optimism.
Talking points ranged from shifts in the climate tech funding ecosystem from physical technologies (like solar panels), through to ensuring the climate conversation explores and integrates solutions proposed by indigenous knowledge systems rather than prioritising Global North-led models. A core argument of the session had interdisciplinarity at its heart: overcoming the climate crisis requires moving beyond individualistic mindsets and instead on fostering a collective approach.
TORCH Talks like this one are paving the way for new ways of working together that the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, due to open this year, will enable and foster. For the first time in the University’s history, one Oxford building will house seven major Humanities faculties plus TORCH, the Cultural Programme, the OII and Institute for Ethics in AI – all centres and programmes committed to interdisciplinary ventures.
New shared spaces, many open to the public, will create opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations and – crucially – an opportunity for external partners from other fields and sectors to share what Oxford has traditionally done behind closed doors.
“The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second-oldest university in continuous operation.”
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