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c○ 2009 Alan F. Blackwell, Lee Wilson, Alice Street, Charles Boulton, John Knell Technical reports published by the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory are freely available via the Internet: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/ ISSN 1476-2986
Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with interdisciplinary teams Alan F. Blackwell Computer Laboratory/Crucible Network, University of Cambridge Lee Wilson Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge Alice Street School of Global Studies, University of Sussex Charles Boulton Innovation Coaching Ltd John Knell Intelligence Agency 1.1. Executive summary Interdisciplinary innovation arises from the positive effects that result when stepping across the social boundaries that we structure knowledge by. Those boundaries include academic disciplines, government departments, companies’ internal functions, companies and sectors, and the boundaries between these domains. In the knowledge economy, it is often the case that the right knowledge to solve a problem is in a different place to the problem itself, so interdisciplinary innovation is an essential tool for the future. There are also many problems today that need more than one kind of knowledge to solve them, so interdisciplinary innovation is also an essential tool for the challenging problems of today. This report presents the results of an in-depth study into successful interdisciplinary innovation, focusing on the personal experiences of the people who achieve it. It is complementary to organisational research, and to research on the economic impact of innovation, but has primarily adopted perspectives and methods from other disciplines. Instead, this report has been developed by a team that is itself interdisciplinary, with a particular focus on anthropology, design research, and strategic policy. It also draws on reports from expert witnesses and invited commentators in many other fields. Interdisciplinary innovation is largely about team-work, where members of the team bring different skills and perspectives. But it is difficult to work with people whose knowledge is separated by boundaries. Boundaries cannot simply be ignored or removed. Knowledge must be bounded, in part because organisational knowledge is maintained by the groups of experts who develop and maintain the core knowledge of Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 3
Page 1: Technical Report Number 760 Radical
Page 5 and 6: 1.2. Contents 1.1. Executive summar
Page 7 and 8: 2. Introduction Innovation is not a
Page 9 and 10: 2.1. Definitions Several readers of
Page 11 and 12: perhaps by exploiting emerging tech
Page 13 and 14: 3.1.1 A key enabler: the ‘pole-st
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Page 17 and 18: these perceptions of lack of discip
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Page 21 and 22: develop and deliver based on the te
Page 23 and 24: problems of society are complex - a
Page 25 and 26: analytic consistency. Although not
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Page 29 and 30: intellectual approaches. It is not
Page 31 and 32: The need for and management of inte
Page 33 and 34: different language). Rather, they h
Page 35 and 36: 4. Wedding Creativity and Knowledge
Page 37 and 38: literature (e.g. Klein 1996, Latucc
Page 39 and 40: our project, if it were possible to
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Page 49 and 50: interdisciplinary projects. It is a
Page 51 and 52: developed to stimulate creativity w
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the work of artists (or perhaps pri
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ideological advances. Many projects
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designers. Peter Guthrie 32 and the
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own right, and its ethical foundati
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is conventionally assessed in terms
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igour that can be assessed objectiv
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obliquely or in passing as their
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the people who ‘identify the obvi
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order to obtain funding and employm
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7. Obstacles to interdisciplinary i
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advancement within the elite hierar
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New fields of study often arise in
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Metrication would not be necessary
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kinds of knowledge led to negotiati
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8. Innovation policy - policy for i
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impact. Extrinsic impact involves s
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One important role for the public p
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9. Contributors and Acknowledgement
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10. Bibliography Adams, J., Jackson
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Hallam, E. and Ingold, T. (eds.) (2
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Merton, P., and E. Barber. (2004).
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Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of p
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are expected to be meaningful to th
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disciplinary theory bases or termin
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argued that the well-developed SET
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these disciplines to a subsidiary o
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In a later article on the subject N
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One interesting discovery was that
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innovation might take in practice t
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any in-depth analysis into how and
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interdisciplinarity as presented to
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14. Appendix D: Advice on how to do
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technical innovation � utilize ex
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� need not have a clear business
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� successful researchers have spa
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� use visualisation and visual st
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