The future is transdisciplinary … … but how do we achieve that in university research? Nick Tyler CBE FREng Chadwick Professor of Civil Engineering UCL

A bit about me … Musician Know when you are the soloist and when you are accompanying Have a select skill Need to tune to others Need to listen The right answer can always change Creativity is a constant adaptation Music does not exist until someone plays it

A bit about me … Musician Engineer Clarity about knowing what the problem is Bring skills together to face the actual problem, not the one that is most convenient to solve Evaluation of outcomes

A bit about me … Musician Engineer Learner Learning is driven by curiosity Always something new to learn Learning is never complete Learning is perennially adaptive Learning is a great experience

A bit about me … Musician Engineer Learner Interpreter Learning needs to be communicated Communication needs understanding of the meaning of what has been learnt Interpreting what has been learnt in one space in the context of another

My internal conflict is ... I hate the confines placed by disciplines, but need the benefits arising from someone else who embraces them

Who is sitting with you at your table? How would you describe yourselves as a group? What are your ‘internal conflicts’?

So what is a ‘Discipline’? “The training of scholars and subordinates to proper conduct and action by instructing and exercising them in the same” (Oxford English Dictionary)

What do we mean by ‘transdisciplinary? Monodisciplinary To study following a single disciplinary line of thought Multidisciplinary To study following two or more disciplinary lines of thought Cross-disciplinary To apply one disciplinary line of thought in another discipline Transdisciplinary To create change in one disciplinary line of thought as a result of the incursion of one or more different ones

What do we mean by ‘transdisciplinary? Monodisciplinary To study following a single disciplinary line of thought Multidisciplinary To bring two or more disciplinary lines of thought to a problem Cross-disciplinary To apply one disciplinary line of thought in another discipline Transdisciplinary To create change in one disciplinary line of thought as a result of the incursion of one or more different ones

What do we mean by ‘transdisciplinary? Monodisciplinary To study following a single disciplinary line of thought Multidisciplinary To bring two or more disciplinary lines of thought to a problem Cross-disciplinary To apply one disciplinary line of thought in another discipline Transdisciplinary To create change in one disciplinary line of thought as a result of the incursion of one or more different ones

What do we mean by ‘transdisciplinary? Monodisciplinary To study following a single disciplinary line of thought Multidisciplinary To bring two or more disciplinary lines of thought to a problem Cross-disciplinary To apply one disciplinary line of thought in another discipline Transdisciplinary To create change in one disciplinary line of thought as a result of the incursion of one or more different ones

Multidisciplinarity Medical Care Social Psychological Engineering

Cross-disciplinarity Medical Care Social Psychological Engineering

Transdisciplinarity Medical Care Social Psychological Engineering

So, for example, How does an engineer think?

Realise Performance Envision Compose Implement Evaluate Every step of the Performance is recursive to all the previous ones Translate Transform

Performance Every step of the Performance must be transdisciplinary Realise Performance Envision Compose Implement Evaluate Translate Every step of the Performance must be transdisciplinary Transform

How do people at your table ‘perform’?

Funding routes Funding evaluators always work in the past They work on the basis of what they know In times of uncertainty, they retrench into their core beliefs They are very poor at evaluating risk Divergence between what they might like to fund and the lines of finance available to fund it Complex research is expensive – they want to fund more projects, not necessarily better ones

PEARL* Expensive University supportive Obtained funding University backtracks Funding now at risk Will it happen? Watch this space! * Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory

Publications Same as funders (often the same people) Fear of the unknown “I know about field A (and this paper looks very dull), but I know nothing about field B” … and vice versa … results in low scores “Peer review is the single greatest obstacle to progress” Are academic papers the right way to publish complex research?

Promotions “we take great account of people doing multidisciplinary research” – Pah! Still highly publications biased Need much more support from outside academia – problem owners for whom you are addressing what they think are their problems … but … this does not work for fundamental complex research

REF In theory should be taken into account … … but in my experience thus far, it is not. REF 2020 is supposed to learn from REF 2014 Multidisciplinary panels? Issue of how REF is processed internally – in UCL – and other institutions Highly risk averse – a lot of money at stake!

What to do… Publications, Promotions and REF go nowhere if you don’t do the research So you need to create research proposals that will allow you to do what you need to do Bear in mind the reviewers will not understand it (but think they do) Take a broad view of what is actually done in the project Need a good support network – UCL is relatively good at that (Grand Challenges, Domains etc.) – but you need your own group too

What would work collectively for the people at your table? How would you go about doing that?

Thanks! n.tyler@ucl.ac.uk