Cultural studies of collaborative science and technology

Abstract

A cultural approach to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research focuses on how these modes of research can more effectively address scientific and societal challenges. Worldwide, multidimensional challenges, such as the pandemic, climate change or migration crises, urgently call for more collaborative research that can help in transforming social reality. However, many factors still act as obstacles to high-impact research, resulting in deficiencies and disconnects between practice and policy. As a result, inter- and transdisciplinarity are trapped in a pervasive contradiction between promotional rhetoric, on the one hand, and relatively inflexible institutional and funding reward systems, on the other hand. This contradiction needs to be fully elaborated on to understand the political, societal and economic values underlying inter- and transdisciplinarity. To fill this gap, the research programme on cultural studies of collaborative science and technology, which focuses on inter- and transdisciplinarity, studies the interconnections among i) those who study inter- and transdisciplinary cultures, ii) those who engage in inter- and transdisciplinary research and iii) those who promote and fund inter- and transdisciplinary research.