Plenary Conference PHSS 2021 Interdisciplinarity Orientation as a Condition for Transdisciplinary Research: Nature and Nurture

Key-note speaker: prof. dr. Adriana Zaiț

Faculty of Economics and Bussines Administration, UAIC, Romania

Thursday, 28 October 2021, 9.15-10.15

Google Meet: meet.google.com/kiw-afxv-enw

“Transdisciplinarity has arrived yet university research is taking more time to realize and acknowledge such a relevant mega stroke of academic history. It may expose the irrelevance of conventional research which had worked through the ages as a discipline focused, individualized and confidential copyrighted script of proposals where researchers traversed problems like horses with blinders generating research findings which lacked a holistic equilibrium but greater passion and demonstrable insecurity from critiques.” (Singh, 2019).

We navigate our life through rough academic tribes’ territories and we waste energies in disciplinary divides and scientific disciplinary fights. Between agonism and antagonism, between closing fences to protect disciplinary standards and largely opening doors to multiple actors who deal with complex societal issues, interdisciplinarity might be the long waited solution for a new mode of research and knowledge production. The challenge of being or becoming interdisciplinary oriented remains, though. What makes us successful in interdisciplinary collaborations, which are the forces that foster our willingness to engage in interdisciplinary work? It is not clear yet what personal traits or attributes, or what social factors contribute to the creation of a good interdisciplinary orientation. What seems to become clearer lately, however, is that we do not need the nature or nurture divide in terms of developing interdisciplinarity – such an orientation has both characteristics: nature – as either a trait or a state of mind, and nurture – can be encouraged and developed through appropriate education and exposure.