The challenges of interdisciplinary research and publishing

16th January 2020

 

Dominic Medway

Professor Dominic Medway joins us to look at the challenges around interdisciplinary research and publishing.

Professor Dominic Medway, Institute of Place Management, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School.

My research broadly covers the production and consumption of space and place. This includes topics like place management and marketing, place attachment and geosemiotics. I have also researched the issues of student experience and assessment in higher education. It is fair to say, therefore, that my work bridges multiple sub-disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, including marketing, geography, psychology, tourism, history and education. This is reflected in the broad range of journals I have published in.

Working in this interdisciplinary way is something I am quite proud of, but it is not always easy and there are some career development issues to consider if you pursue this approach. Below, I want to share some tips and observations I have gained regarding interdisciplinary research and publishing based on 25 years' experience.

1. Be prepared to read a lot more. Inevitably when you start to dabble in lots of different subject areas, this means engaging with a wider range of scholarly outputs. One of the ways around this is to work with people in different subject areas who may already have extensive knowledge of alternative literatures (see my next tip).


2. Work with authors in different subject areas that can add to your work and the writing you are doing. This will make the task of publishing in an interdisciplinary manner a lot easier.

3. Think about ways in which your interdisciplinary knowledge can add theoretical value and contribute to a different subject area. For example, I have had some success taking ideas from marketing and writing about them in geography journals, and visa versa.


4. Engage with debates within the journal you are targeting for a publication. Look through previous editions of the journal and identify work that relates to yours, then make this connection for the reader of your paper.

5. Understand that different subject areas have different ways of approaching research, and adapt your style according to where you are trying to get your work published. For example, in my experience marketing journals often want a substantive methodology section, with the rationale for sampling and the approach to analysis laid out in intricate detail. Conversely, some of the best geography journals seem not to get overly focused on methodological detail, preferring instead to arrive more quickly at unpacking the richness of any findings.


6. From a career development point of view, working and publishing in an interdisciplinary way can attract criticism if it is not managed well. I have heard people refer to those taking an interdisciplinary perspective in pejorative terms as taking 'a scattergun approach'. To deal with this I would strongly recommend focusing on a central intellectual theme that links the majority of your work together. Find a way of articulating this theme in a few well- chosen words, and be prepared to repeat these words with confidence in every career development review, promotion case, job application and interview you undertake.

In summary, interdisciplinary research is not for everyone. Some prefer to focus on one specific research area for their whole academic career, and this is a perfectly legitimate path to pursue. But for others there is real reward in working in an interdisciplinary way, provided it is managed properly. Learning about the perspectives and theories of different discipline areas can broaden your intellectual palette when writing, opening up opportunities for some unexpected and welcome interdisciplinary synergies to emerge. Also, as someone who has moved into academic management and leadership in the second half of my career, I have found an interdisciplinary perspective incredibly helpful as it allows me to better understand how academic colleagues from a variety of subject areas may think and act differently.