Interdisciplinary PhD School - Module 2

Interdisciplinary Research: Epistemic issues, Theories, Processes and Academic career
Interdisciplinarity – Transformation – Creativity

Masterclass in Interdisciplinary Research, Wednesday 07 - Friday 09 November 2018, University of Geneva (Valais Campus) - Sion

This module aims to sensitize and train doctoral students to the theories and concepts that underpin interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. By explaining the origins and recent developments of interdisciplinarity from the perspective of history, philosophy and epistemology of the sciences, doctoral students are trained and cognitively equipped to understand motivations and reasons for engaging in transformative research between and beyond disciplinary boundaries.

The theories and models of interdisciplinarity, as well as the different concepts of disciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity, are defined in such a way as to make them accessible to doctoral students for implementation in their thesis path. The stages of an individual and/or collaborative interdisciplinary research process are also dealt with, on the basis of examples and in a spirit of discovery, innovation and creativity. PhD students will finally undertake a self-reflexive approach on the place of interdisciplinarity in their thesis research (conceptual, theoretical, epistemological issues), its potentialities and its pitfalls/limitations, as well as its impact on their past, present and future academic identity and trajectory (career plan, evaluation, publication, strategies).

• To present theoretical and epistemological advances in inter- and transdisciplinary research. Mastering epistemological backgrounds and theories of interdisciplinarity.
• To define the concepts of disciplinarity, pluridisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, their epistemological foundations and their relevance to thesis work. Mastering the concepts and relate them to the thesis work, in order to ensure coherence and integration between disciplinary points of view.
• To understand the stages of construction of an interdisciplinary research project involving several disciplines, theoretical frameworks and epistemological horizons. Mastering the complexity of the interdisciplinary research process
• To examine the activity and the skills of the "interdisciplinary" researcher: to discover paths of interdisciplinary researchers and to exchange with and between doctoral students on the potentialities but also the pitfalls/limitations of interdisciplinary work (centers of interest, academic and professional career, identity and trajectory, publication, evaluation, etc.), particularly in the context of doctoral research. Making interdisciplinarity a means of self-reflection and a factor of success in the academic career.

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