Interdisciplinarity: A complexity approach towards academic research

Abstract

Placing the issue of interdisciplinarity within a complexity framework, the current paper aims to explore different facets of interdisciplinary research (IDR). The theoretical and empirical analysis revolves around the main factors influencing IDR abilities and achievements, that is, the propelling context, attitude and further awareness of thinking and acting across boundaries in order to reach viable solutions to complex problems. On purpose to test the inferred relationships, the study relies on a questionnaire-based survey conducted with 214 early-career researchers from interdisciplinary departments or enrolled in interdisciplinary projects. The findings revealed that both attitude and context are important for rising researchers' awareness, in forming their abilities and reporting interdisciplinary achievements, the structural model explaining 51.9% in the variation of interdisciplinary research abilities and 17.1% in the variation of the researchers' interdisciplinary outcomes.