Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:26:13.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Interdisciplinary research and academic sustainability: managing knowledge in an age of accountability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2011

ROBERT FRODEMAN
ROBERT FRODEMAN*
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Interdisciplinarity, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, 76210, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr Robert Frodeman e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

For the past 125 years the university has been the home of knowledge production. The 20th century research university combined a Kantian belief in disciplinarity, a Humboldtian commitment to linking research and education and upholding academic autonomy, and a Cartesian allegiance to infinite knowledge production. This approach to knowledge creation was seen as sufficient, for knowledge products themselves were understood as automatically relevant to society, and no one imagined a problem with endless knowledge production. The 20th century model of knowledge production is now under pressure from a number of sources: information technologies, neoliberal assumptions and demands for greater accountability. ‘Interdisciplinarity’ has become the term of art for addressing this crisis. But interdisciplinarity is no panacea to the challenges facing knowledge production today. In addition to knowledge on sustainability, knowledge production itself must now be made sustainable. This requires clearly connecting knowledge production and use, and ending the bad infinity of knowledge production.

Keywords

interdisciplinaritysustainabilityuniversity
Type
THEMATIC SECTION: Interdisciplinary Progress in Environmental Science & Management
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 38 , Issue 2: Thematic section. Interdisciplinary Progress in Environmental Science and Management , June 2011 , pp. 105 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, G.F. & Chalkidou, K. (2008) Spending on health care: more is better? Journal of the American Medical Association 299: 2444–2445.Google Scholar
Bauerlein, M., Gad-el-Hak, M., Grody, W., McKelvey, B. & Trimble, S.W. (2010) We must stop the avalanche of low-quality research. Chronicle of Higher Education [www document]. URL http://chronicle.com/article/We-Must-Stop-the-Avalanche-of/65890/Google Scholar
CID (2010) Sustainability science program. Harvard University [www document]. URL http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsciGoogle Scholar
Clark, W. (2006) Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University. Chicago, USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Crease, R. & Selinger, E., eds (2006) The Philosophy of Expertise. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Cronin, J.M. & Horton, H.E. (2009) Will higher education be the next bubble to burst? Chronicle of Higher Education [www document]. URL http://chronicle.com/article/Will-Higher-Education-Be-the/44400Google Scholar
Daly, H. (2008) A steady state economy. Paper presented to the UK Sustainable Development Commission, 24 April 2008 [www document]. URL http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Herman_Daly_thinkpiece.pdfGoogle Scholar
Descartes, R. (2000) Rules for the Direction of the Mind. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Bobbs-Merrill Co.Google Scholar
Friedman, T.L. (2007) The World is Flat. New York, NY, USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Frodeman, R. (2006) The policy turn in environmental philosophy. Environmental Ethics 28: 3–20.Google Scholar
Frodeman, R. & Mitcham, C. (2007) New directions in interdisciplinarity: broad, deep, and critical. Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society 27: 506–514.Google Scholar
Frodeman, R., Tuana, N., Holbrook, J.B. & O'Rourke, M. (2010) Meeting national needs through the social, behavioral, and economic sciences. National Science Foundation White Paper [www document]. URL http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020/index.cfmGoogle Scholar
Frodeman, R., Klein, J.T. & Mitcham, C., eds (2010) The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fuller, S. (2009) The Sociology of Intellectual Life. London, UK: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Fuller, S. & Collier, J. (2004) Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge, Second edition. Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Hegel, G.F.W. (1969) Hegel's Science of Logic, translated Miller, A.V.. New York, NY, USA: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time, translated Macquarrie, J. & Robinson, E.. New York, NY, USA: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1982) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. New York, NY, USA: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Hirsch, J.E. (2005) An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102: 16569–16572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirsch Hadorn, G., Hoffmann-Riem, H., Biber-Klemm, S., Grossenbacher-Mansuy, W., Joye, D., Pohl, C., Wiesmann, U. & Zemp, E., eds (2008) Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research. New York, NY, USA: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holbrook, J.B. (2010) Peer review. In: The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, ed. Frodeman, R., Klein, J.T. & Mitcham, C., pp. 321–332. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
IPCC (2007) Summary for policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. & Miller, H.L.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press [www document]. URL http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdfGoogle Scholar
Joy, B. (2000) Why the future does not need us. Wired Magazine 8.04 [www document]. URL http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.htmlGoogle Scholar
Kant, I. (1997) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated and ed. Gregor, M.. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kates, R.W., Clark, W.C., Corell, R., Hall, J.M., Jaeger, C.C., Lowe, I., McCarthy, J.J., Schellnhuber, H.J., Bolin, B., Dickson, N.M., Faucheux, S., Gallopin, G.C., Grübler, A., Huntley, B., Jäger, J., Jodha, N.S., Kasperson, R.E., Mabogunje, A., Matson, P., Mooney, H., Moore, B., O'Riordan, T. & Svedin, U. (2001) Sustainability science. Science 292: 641–642.Google Scholar
Klein, J.T. (1990) Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Detroit, MI, USA: Wayne State University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, J.T. (2005) Humanities, Culture, and Interdisciplinarity: The Changing American Academy. Albany, NY, USA: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Klein, J.T. (2010) Creating Interdisciplinary Campus Cultures. San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey Bass/The Association of American Colleges and Universities.Google Scholar
Krohn, W. (2010) Interdisciplinary cases and disciplinary knowledge. In: The Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity, ed. Frodeman, R., Klein, J.T. & Mitcham, C., pp. 31–49. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krull, W. (2005) Review of Exporting the Humboldtian University. Minerva 1: 99–102.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, First edition. Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, R. (1999) The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. New York, NY, USA: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Kurzweil, R. & Grossman, T. (2004) Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever. New Yprk, NY, USA: Plume Publishing.Google Scholar
Labi, A. & McMurtrie, B. (2010) British universities to see budgets slashed. Chronicle of Higher Education [www document]. URL http://chronicle.com/article/British-Universities-to-See/125032/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=enGoogle Scholar
Lattuca, L. (2001) Creating Interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching Among College and University Faculty. University Park, PA, USA: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. (2010) The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. New York, NY, USA: Norton and Co.Google Scholar
Mangan, K. (2010) Texas A&M system will rate professors based on their bottom-line value. Chronicle of Higher Education [www document]. URL http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-A-M-System-Will-Rate/124280/Google Scholar
Marx, K. (1848) The Communist Manifesto. Reproduced by Forgottenbooks.org [www document]. URL http://books.google.com/books?id=mURxuWGr79IC&source=gbs_navlinks_sGoogle Scholar
Newell, W.H. ed. (1998) Interdisciplinarity: Essays from the Literature. New York, NY, USA: The College Board.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. (2003) Beyond Good and Evil, translated Hollingdale, R.J.. New York, NY, USA: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
NUCATS (2010) Overview: science of team science (SciTS). Northwestern University [www document]. URL http://scienceofteamscience.northwestern.eduGoogle Scholar
Nowotny, H., Scott, P. & Gibbons, M. (2001) Re-thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Oxford, UK: Polity.Google Scholar
Open Government Initiative (2011) Background information [www document]. URL http://expertnet.wikispaces.com/Getting+StartedGoogle Scholar
Oreskes, N. & Conway, E.M. (2010) Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New York, NY, USA: Bloomsbury Press.Google Scholar
Pielke, R.A. Jr & Byerly, R. (1998) Beyond basic and applied. Physics Today 51: 42–46.Google Scholar
Repko, A.F. (2008) Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Los Angeles, CA, USA: Sage Publishing.Google Scholar
Rork, C. (2010) Elimination of state support for higher ed possible in 2011. ColoradoPols.com [www document]. URL http://coloradopols.com/diary/13928/elimination-of-state-support-for-higher-ed-possible-in-2011Google Scholar
Sarewitz, D. (2000) Human well-being and federal science: what's the connection? In: Science, Technology, and Democracy, ed. Kleinman, D.L., pp. 87–102. Albany, NY, USA: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Sarewitz, D. (2003) Does science policy exist, and if so, does it matter? Some observations on the US R&D budget. Arizona State University Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes [www document]. URL http://www.cspo.org/documents/budget_seminar.pdfGoogle Scholar
Sarewitz, D. (2004) How science makes environmental controversies worse. Environmental Science and Policy 7: 385–403.Google Scholar
Shattuck, R. (1997) Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography. New York, NY, USA: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Stehr, N. (2006) Knowledge Politics: Governing the Consequences of Science and Technology. Boulder, CO, USA: Paradigm Publishing.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. (2010) Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities. New York, NY, USA: Knoft.Google Scholar
Wagner, C.S., Roessner, J.D. Bobb, K. Thompson Klein, J. Boyack, K.W., Keyton, J., Rafols, I. & Börner, K. (2011) Approaches to understanding and measuring interdisciplinary scientific research (IDR): a review of the literature. Journal of Informatics 165: 14–26.Google Scholar
Weingart, P. & Stehr, N. (2000) Practicing Interdisciplinarity. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar