Towards a discussion on multidisciplinary studies and research

Celebrating a significant birthday in the last few weeks fits with having a bit of a rethink of what is on my list of must do’s for the next few decades. Programming a good, solid midlife crisis now seems to be a great idea and further postgraduate study has ticked all the boxes to that end. One good outcome has been getting the chance to shift sideways in the type of work I do; the opportunity to consider being a multidisciplinary professional instead of a specialist within one discipline seemed attractive.

The terms multi, inter, pluri and trans-disciplinary all have slightly different meanings. An internet search quicly locates multidisciplinary study centres in many tertiary institutions and these centres are coming up with interesting research. It is not unusual to read the word ‘complex’ in this context. Multiple ontologies and multiple epistemologies also fit in well here. There is certainly a lot of interest in multi- inter- trans- etc disciplinary studies in science. The subject is worth a few posts to explore further, which is what I’ll do over the next few days.