Abstract
Driven both by the increasing pace of scientific discovery and the development of new technologies, strategies for graduate education are emerging to prepare students for collaborative work across disciplines. Outstanding graduate students are attracted to research problems of relevance to important social goals and are capable of combining disciplinary depth with interdisciplinary breadth without prolonged time to degree, as shown by the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. Programs that intentionally prepare graduate students for interdisciplinary work typically include an interdisciplinary curriculum with participation of faculty from several different areas to help students learn the language and culture of another discipline and structured settings in which students learn to collaborate across disciplines and work in teams to solve research problems. Activities beyond the classroom help students to negotiate disciplinary divides in other ways. The departmental/disciplinary organization of most universities is a challenge for both students and faculty seeking disciplinary flexibility in education. To encourage a new ecosystem supporting interdisciplinary education and research, universities are creating new organizational policies to provide both the flexibility and the rewards and incentives for faculty to work and educate across disciplines. Funding agencies are adapting their own organizational structures to find new ways to accommodate interdisciplinary research and education.
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Any opinion, finding, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
This manuscript was written in conjunction with the NSF/World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) international study on Convergence of Knowledge, Technology, and Society. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the US National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET), which is the principal organizing body for the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
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Van Hartesveldt, C.J. (2016). Integrative Graduate Education and Research. In: Bainbridge, W., Roco, M. (eds) Handbook of Science and Technology Convergence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07052-0_61
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07052-0_61
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