British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Working Together Across Disciplines
Convened by the British Academy and organised as part of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science's 2007 Festival of Science,
hosted by the University of York
Chair: Wyn Grant, University of Warwick
Speakers: Henry Buller, University of Exeter, David Chandler, University of Warwick, Robert Fish, University of Exeter, Stuart Lane, University of Durham, Liz O’Brien, Forest Research, Neil Ward, University of Newcastle and Sarah Whatmore, Oxford University Centre for the Environment.
Vanbrugh College, Room 123, University of York
11.30 – 13.30, Thursday, 13 September 2007
Discussion summary from Wyn Grant
Expert opinion increasingly needs to be mobilised to contribute to the solution of many of the pressing problems facing the world today such as climate change. These problems have so many dimensions that it is no longer sufficient to tackle them from the perspective of just one or two academic disciplines. When people have talked about multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary work in the past, they have often meant cooperation within the humanities or the social sciences or sometimes between the two. However, current problems increasingly require cooperation between natural scientists and social scientists. For example, GM crops may seem to be a good technological solution to a number of challenges, but if there is public resistance to their use, as has been the case in Northern Europe, it will not be possible to deploy the technology.
Many of these challenges arise in relation to the food chain. People are very sensitive about what they eat: 'you are what you eat' is a common phrase. These concerns have been accentuated by a number of 'food scares' about how food is produced and what it contains. The panel at York drew on work done by a number of participants in the Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme. The projects varied in the number of disciplines involved and the methodologies they used for common working, but they shared a common conviction that working with scientists from other disciplines could often be challenging but was usually stimulating and intellectually rewarding.
Some of the biggest conflicts actually occur between advocates of different theories or methodologies within disciplines. When academics start to work with someone from a new discipline, they are often circumspect but also respectful. There is a willingness to have their own understandings challenged and to embrace new perspectives and ways of thinking. The lively response from the audience at York suggested that what the panellists were talking about was relevant both to how academics work and to their contribution to contemporary policy problems.
Wyn Grant, University of Warwick
September 2007
Speakers and Presentations
(Titles link to PowerPoint slides of the presentation)
Challenges for the natural and social sciences
David Chandler and Wyn Grant, University of Warwick
Counting Sheep: interdisciplinary approaches to the notion of 'quality' in the food chain
Henry Buller, University of Exeter
Interdisciplinary working: perspectives from the RELU project on collaborative deer management
Liz O'Brien, Forest Research
Understanding environmental knowledge controversies: environmental competency groups and flood risk management
Stuart Lane, University of Durham, Neil Ward, University of Newcastle, and Sarah Whatmore, Oxford University Centre for the Environment
Robert Fish, University of Exeter (paper to follow)