Interdisciplinary Research

Funding Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) is a high priority at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies, so the CEAS Research Support Office (RSO) is developing infrastructure, tools, and talent to assist investigators submitting IDR proposals.  In contrast to disciplinary and multidisciplinary research, IDR intentionally engages intellectually diverse researchers and stakeholders in framing research questions, adopting integration strategies for answering them, and developing innovative scientific approaches for their solution. Both big and small IDR teams face challenges like navigating diverse disciplinary languages, methodologies, stakeholders, and research contexts so integrative strategies are important to successful funding outcomes.  

Integrative activities for teaming may include creating management and collaboration plans, strategies for leveraging diversity, promoting team science and convergence training, and implementing team development strategies. In the coming months, more IDR resources will be available on the CEAS RSO website including surveys for evaluating a team or lab’s IDR integrative capacity (transdisciplinary orientation) and links to other useful tools.

Collaborative Management

Team Science Plan
  1. Write a Management Plan for a grant proposal demonstrating sophistication in supporting collaboration.
  2. Team members use intentional strategies for refining collaborative processes and outcomes.
  3. Develop collaboration goals for the course of the project and then assess progress toward meeting them.
  4. Engage experts in teaming and organizational management to participate in grants on collaboration-related matters.
  5. Develop a team charter or collaboration plan at the outset of the project to help guide the center’s processes over the five-year initiative (e.g., specifying agreements for developing and sharing credit on research reports; and procedures for resolving collaborative conflicts as they arise).
  6. Provide team science training toolkits for co-investigators and trainees.
  7. Present team science training to faculty and trainees during the start-up phase of a collaborative project.
  8. Promote convergence science training and consultation to members during each year of a center's operations.
  9. Share leadership activities across the core institutions to effectively integrate research activities.
  10. Develop strategies to leverage the team's diverse composition to enable maximum innovation; identify milestone goals for each year of the project as well as metrics for evaluating progress toward meeting them.
  11. Engage team members in establishing technologies and best practices for facilitating online collaboration among spatially remote team members.
  12. Implement team development strategies to enhance interpersonal cohesion and intellectual synergy as they collaborate over the course of the project.

Contact Susan.Day@colorado.edu for more information. 

Useful Links:

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