In the hallowed world beyond brochure copy and pretty website pipedreams, numerous executives have said privately that interdisciplinary work is so rare that it appears moribund?
So what might drive academics from diverse disciplines to share ideas and accelerate impact through compromise and collaboration? Sharing a common affliction seems like a reasonable starting point.
It is therefore significant that 14 eminent researchers with diabetes were corralled by Deakin’s Elizabeth Holmes-Truscott into mapping out a paper examining opportunities to accelerate real-world community impact through interdisciplinary research.
The paper is short, sharp and interesting – mapping out the diverse disciplines and shared lived experience with diverse forms of diabetes, drawn together through the Australian Centre for Accelerating Diabetes Innovation.
The authors note there are both institutional and practical barriers to collaboration: the persistence of disciplinary silos, narrow competitive research funding pathways and awards and noting that funding is not allocated commensurate with the prevalence or health costs of the condition – making resourcing of coordination a challenge.
The paper makes a clear case for the systematic application of knowledge from different disciplines to address practical issues with improving care, and also notes that interdisciplinary commitment and effort could raise awareness.
Overall, the paper demonstrates not just the potential rewards on offer, but sketches out the many barriers currently working against cross-disciplinary work and magnified community impact.
