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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

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

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

8. 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)

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Multidisciplinarity
Medical
Care
Social
Psychological
Engineering

14. Cross-disciplinarity
Medical
Care
Social
Psychological
Engineering

15. Transdisciplinarity
Medical
Care
Social
Psychological
Engineering

16. So, for example,
How does an engineer think?

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

18. 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

19. How do people at your table ‘perform’?

20. 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

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

22. 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?

23. 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

24. 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!

25. 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

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

27. Thanks!