A closer look at multidisciplinary aspects of LASTU programme

Given the stated goals of the program, interdisciplinarity was a norm rather than an exception in the funded projects. The projects successfully applied computational methods to understand and solve complex problems in various domains of science and society, including domains that had not yet fully exploited the advanced computing capabilities. Besides the ‘vertical’ integration of methods and substance fields, the program also facilitated interaction in a ‘horizontal’ direction, i.e. between fields that traditionally operate within their own experimental and theoretical settings. Almost all projects have also continued the interdisciplinary collaboration established in the LASTU program. The program has mainly strengthened existing networks of collaboration rather than created completely new contacts. The interdisciplinary scope of many projects was modest, covering research fields that interact with each other on a more or less regular basis. Moreover, while computational methods are becoming more frequent in the social sciences and humanities, too, these domains were less represented in the program. A few projects did cover humanities issues, such as the human aspects of cognition, language, speech or health, but especially the involvement of social sciences was low. While the rationale of interdisciplinary collaboration in most projects was to better understand a real-world phenomenon, the organization of interaction between disciplines depended on the specific goals of each consortium. Interdisciplinarity served one or more of five general functions: problem solving, conceptual bridging, exploration, method development, and technology development. Interdisciplinarity was instrumental especially for the first three functions. Interdisciplinary collaborations aiming at problem solving started with a real world issue, such as climate uncertainty, problems in spoken language, or forest management, and designed their interaction for finding an appropriate problem formulation and its solution. Attempts to conceptual bridging took place among two or more theoretically oriented partners, with a view to investigate links between different disciplinary approaches (e.g. physical and chemical scales) to the same phenomenon. Interdisciplinary collaboration also served the exploration of unknown scientific territories (e.g. two-person neuroscience) by combining intellectual resources in a new way. While these functions organize interdisciplinary interactions in many domains of research, computational science may be salient by virtue of boosting these functions by advanced computing capabilities. Interdisciplinarity was realized in the projects through concrete research activities that served as nexuses between disciplinary partners. Key areas of interdisciplinary exchange were the definition of research problems (e.g. how to operationalize climate uncertainty to improve weather forecasts), the selection and development of theoretical concepts or models (e.g. bridging models that cover different scales in time and space), and interpretation of empirical evidence (e.g. using new imaging methods for studying the vocal folds). Interdisciplinarity was thus an integral part of the research process, rather than an addition to it. None of the projects, for example, performed interdisciplinary activities around the application of results only. The importance of specific interdisciplinary activities, however, was often perceived differently by different partners. ‘Importers’ of computational methods, for example, emphasized the role of interdisciplinary collaboration in the interpretation of data, whereas ‘exporters’ put a premium on interdisciplinary exchanges around theoretical concepts. Divergent interests were rarely an obstacle for successful collaboration. Instead, they enabled an effective division of cognitive labor, as parties could pursue their specific goals in harmony while benefitting from the complementary expertise of each other. Major challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration lay in epistemic or cognitive differences between the participating fields. Partners did not always understand each other’s goals, concepts, methods, or language, which brought about problems in identifying the most relevant research questions, striking an appropriate level of analysis, or agreeing upon a common vocabulary. Cultural or operational challenges relating to different ways of designing models, balancing between theory and data, or writing academic papers were also common. Challenges were overcome by trial-and-error in the course of collaboration, which often resulted in delays in the completion of research. Many project leaders, however, stated that the challenges of interdisciplinary research were not much different from those of conventional academic research. The scientific publications of the seven already reported projects distributed across 21 out of 27 disciplinary categories listed in the Scopus journal database. While the most diverse set of publications spanned across 13 disciplinary categories, the least diverse of them spanned only three categories. Also the interdisciplinary balance of publications varied between the projects, and the overall balance of the program’s publications was biased toward a single discipline, Physics and Astronomy. Based on the disciplinary diversity of publications, five of the seven reported projects were clearly interdisciplinary. At the same time, the degree of co-authoring between consortium partners was relatively low: only one project regularly integrated the contributions of participating disciplines into joint publications. The emphasis the project leaders put on interdisciplinary learning and capacity building, however, suggests that some of the most important impacts of interdisciplinary research cannot be captured by quantitative performance measurement

Kestävyys, poikkitieteellisyys ja tietämisen monimutkaisuus : Heuristiikka avuksi?

Ympäristöongelmat ovat luonteeltaan moniulotteisia ja tämän ominaisuutensa vuoksi käytännössä vaikeita ratkaista. Tällaisista ongelmista yleisessä keskustelussa esiin nousee ennen kaikkea ilmastonmuutos seurannaisvaikutuksineen. Toinen lajityyppiin kytkeytyvä ongelmavyyhti liittyy kestävään kehitykseen. Katri Huutoniemi pohtii artikkelissaan näiden ongelmien luonnetta pirullisina ongelmina, joiden ratkaisemiseen perinteinen tieteellinen tarkastelu ei välttämättä tarjoa riittävää välineistöä. Hän ehdottaa tekstissään vaihtoehtoiseksi ratkaisuvälineeksi heuristiikkaa. Sen avulla voitaisiin saada parempi ote yleensä luonteeltaan poikkitieteellisiin pirullisiin ongelmiin.Peer reviewe

Tieteidenvälisyys tutkimuksen arvioinnissa

The evaluation of interdisciplinary research is complicated by ambiguity about what interdisciplinarity is and what it should be. The question is topical, as evaluation plays an important role in how science is being shaped and changed today. The chapter performs a meta-analysis of the concept of interdisciplinarity in research evaluation, and gives an epistemic account of what would be involved in such evaluations. First, it discusses the various ways interdisciplinarity can add value to the disciplinary organization of academia and their respective implications for research evaluation. Second, it provides tools for mapping and measuring these value-added properties and illustrates what kind of evidence they can convey to research evaluations. The combined examination of values and indicators enables a more differentiated understanding of what exactly to look at when evaluating interdisciplinary research—and more generally, how to design research evaluations from an interdisciplinary point of view.Peer reviewe

Ulospäin suuntautuva ajattalu : Heuristiikkoja ympäristöongelmien systeemiseksi ymmärtämiseksi

The chapter argues that dealing with environmental sustainability requires a systemic, yet open-ended approach to human–environment interaction. It discusses a cognitive strategy for capturing environmental issues as emergent and systemic features of this interaction. With three heuristic variations, the chapter illustrates the benefits of looking systematically out- and upwards from the initial object of interest. Each heuristic provides an orientation framework for making connections amongst a range and variety of factors in order to create a comprehensive and purposeful understanding of environmental issues.Peer reviewe

Ratkaisuja visioimassa : Asiantuntijaharkinta ympäristön tulevaisuuksista

A central task in solving complex sustainability problems is to envision sustainable paths. In this task the heuristic capabilities of experts can be used. By drawing on the literature on expertise and a Delphi study of the future of transport and its CO2 emissions, the chapter discusses expert deliberation as a heuristic process. In this process, it is important to consider how expertise is defined, how expert panels are constructed, how their deliberation is managed, and what prospects for sustainable solutions the process yields. The chapter concludes that expert deliberation is a useful heuristic for exploring and ‘scoping’ future solutions.Peer reviewe

Heuristiikat kognitiivisina työkaluina kestävyyden tavoittelussa

The chapter probes the cognitive foundations of the heuristic approach that unites the volume. It discusses the key challenges taken up in the book, sustainability and transdisciplinarity, in the light of embodied, autopoietic epistemology. Heuristics are seen as cognitive devices with which autopoietic observers adapt to and survive in particular environments. The chapter unpacks heuristics for sustainability from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and embodied cognition, and illustrates the analysis with reference to the cases presented in earlier chapters. It then reformulates transdisciplinary inquiry as a co-creative heuristic that can influence the autopoiesis of disciplinary systems.Peer reviewe

Tieteidenvälinen vastuuvelvollisuus tutkimushankkeiden arvioinnissa : Näkymiä tieteenalarajat ylittävään tieteellisen laadun hallintaan

This dissertation investigates academic research evaluation from the novel perspective of interdisciplinary accountability. While the standard model of evaluation puts a premium on disciplinary expertise and professional control, increasing demands for both interdisciplinarity and accountability have brought about pressures to open scholarly knowledge production to scrutiny beyond disciplinary boundaries. This study is concerned with the socio-epistemic implications of these developments, and discusses interdisciplinary accountability as an essential yet underdeveloped mechanism of academic quality control. It asks what constitutes interdisciplinary accountability, and how it can be demonstrated, validated, and strengthened in the evaluation of research proposals. The empirical part of the study focuses on the evaluation of research proposals in a national research funder in Finland, the Academy of Finland. Drawing on analyses of research proposals and peer review deliberations, the study explores the various ways in which scholars coordinate, negotiate, and modify disciplinary regimes in pursuing high-quality scientific knowledge. In the light of the empirical findings and the literature on interdisciplinarity, social epistemology, and science policy, the study emphasizes context-sensitive, open-ended consideration of epistemic accountabilities in knowledge production and evaluation. The study makes both a theoretical and a pragmatic contribution. First, it provides a complementary perspective on the changing governance of science by articulating the notion of interdisciplinary accountability. While recent debates have emphasized problem solving and public accountability as important indicators of legitimate science today, this study argues that accountability between and across academic disciplines holds an equal promise of more relevant and reliable knowledge. Interdisciplinary accountability is thus a socio-epistemic mechanism for responsible science, and provides a counterforce to both disciplinary autonomy and the tyranny of political or market forces over epistemic values. Second, the study contributes to the pragmatic debate on how to evaluate interdisciplinary research. For this purpose, it articulates a framework for conceptualizing interdisciplinary accountability in research proposals, and considers options to facilitate interdisciplinary accountability through peer review. The framework helps defining the relevant epistemic stakeholders, the functions and benefits of proposed research, as well as the methodogical procedures for accomplishing the stated goals, which constitute the prerequisite for any evaluative act. As for the evaluative act itself, the study suggests using interdisciplinary dialog between reviewers as a type of epistemic standard. A reasonable strategy is to mix experts from different but not distant fields, and select generalist panel members whose expertise is characterized by broad knowledge beyond any one academic field.Tieteellistä laatua on pääsääntöisesti arvioitu kunkin tieteenalan omista lähtökohdista käsin, mutta tieteidenvälisen yhteistyön ja tieteen yhteiskunnallisen vastuuvelvollisuuden vaatimukset ovat luoneet paineita tieteenalarajat ylittävälle tiedontuotannon hallinnoinnille. Tutkimus tarkastelee tieteellisen arvioinnin tavoitteita ja käytäntöjä tästä näkökulmasta, ja tuo keskusteluun tieteidenvälisen vastuuvelvollisuuden käsitteen. Tutkimuksessa kysytään, mitä tieteidenvälinen vastuuvelvollisuus pitää sisällään, ja miten se voidaan osoittaa, todentaa ja ottaa huomioon tutkimushankkeiden arvioinnissa. Tieteidenvälisen vastuuvelvollisuuden ilmenemistä tarkastellaan Suomen Akatemian tutkimushankkeiden arvioinnissa. Empiirinen tutkimus kohdistuu tieteidenvälisen vuorovaikutuksen muotoihin yhtäältä hankesuunnitelmien sisällössä ja toisaalta niiden vertaisarviointiprosessissa. Analyysien kohteena on se, miten tutkijat ja arvioitsijat aktiivisesti koordinoivat, sovittelevat ja muokkaavat tieteenalojen asettamia normeja pyrkiessään tieteellisesti korkeatasoiseen tutkimukseen. Empiiristen löydösten sekä tieteidenvälisyyttä, tieteentutkimusta ja tiedepolitiikkaa käsittelevän kirjallisuuden perusteella esitetään, että episteemisten vastuuvelvollisuuksien tapauskohtainen harkinta on keskeinen elementti uuden tiedon tuotannossa ja arvioinnissa. Tutkimus tuottaa täydentävän näkökulman tiedontuotannon hallinnointia ja sen muutoksia koskevaan keskusteluun, jossa on viime aikoina korostunut tieteen yhteiskunnallinen vastuuvelvollisuus ja tieteellisen tiedon hyödynnettävyys. Työssä esitetään, että tieteidenvälisten suhteiden arvioiminen on ensijainen, mutta vähälle huomiolle jäänyt osa vastuullista tiedontuotantoa. Tieteidenvälinen vastuuvelvollisuus asettaa tieteenaloittaisen tutkimuksen laajemman tiedeyhteisön arvioitavaksi, ja pyrkii siten parantamaan tutkimustiedon luotettavuutta ja tieteellistä relevanssia. Työn keskeiset tulokset tukevat tämän näkökohdan operationalisointia ja edistämistä tutkimushankkeiden arvioinnissa. Arvioinnin viitekehykseksi tutkimus tarjoaa käsitteellisen jäsennyksen tieteidenvälisen vastuuvelvollisuuden rakenteesta. Jäsennys auttaa määrittämään yksittäisen tutkimushankkeen tieteidenvälisiä arviointiperusteita kolmella ulottuvuudella: mille tieteenaloille, minkälaisesta tutkimustavoitteesta, ja minkälaisesta tutkimusprosessista hankkeessa ollaan vastuuvelvollisia. Arvioinnin toteutuksessa tutkimus korostaa tieteidenvälisen neuvotteluympäristön rakentamista. Tieteellisten asiantuntijoiden valinnalla ja asiantuntijapaneelin tieteenalakokoonpanolla voidaan ohjata sitä, missä määrin arvioitsijat rakentavat toistensa asiantuntemuksen ja arvostusten varaan muodostaessaan käsitystä hankkeiden laadusta