Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

is conventionally assessed in terms of the standards associated with that discipline –
in an academic context, through processes of academic peer review. But it is difficult
to evaluate the intrinsic quality of interdisciplinary research through traditional routes
of peer-review precisely, precisely because it transgresses disciplinary boundaries.
Certainly, it seems that metrication of research quality or productivity will tend to
recognise only incrementally innovative research (especially where it stays within the
general boundaries of science and technology), and not the kinds of research that
engage with users, social contexts or public, redefining the goals or interpretation of
scientific and technological research results.
5.8.2 The problem of assessment
Even those who are engaged in interdisciplinary research find it hard to evaluate
outcomes, as reported by Rose Luckin 35 , and in larger studies: Mansilla and Gardner
found “a lack of conceptual clarity about the nature of interdisciplinary work and its
assessment, recognizing the need for a more systematic reflection in this regard”
(Mansilla and Gardner 2006:2). They recommend a dynamic process involving the
interplay of three different fundamental grounds for assessment:
� the way in which the work stands vis a vis what researchers know and find
tenable in the disciplines involved (consistency with multiple separate
disciplinary antecedents)
� the way in which the work stands together as a generative and coherent whole
(balance in weaving together perspectives)
� the way in which the integration advances the goals that researchers set for
their pursuits and the methods they use (effectiveness in advancing
understanding) (Mansilla and Gardner 2006:2).
Marilyn Strathern suggests that the lack of clear measures means that
interdisciplinarity has itself become a measure for valid knowledge (Strathern 2004a)
- the moral imperative that Geoff Crossick observed 36 . Because interdisciplinarity is
associated with the ability to communicate and disseminate knowledge across
boundaries, it is often conflated with gaining an understanding of social context. It
therefore itself becomes an automatic index of accountability, to ‘take society into
account’.
But if interdisciplinarity is to be encouraged as an end in itself, rather than emerging
as required in the course of solving problems, it is difficult to make this work visible
and account for the time devoted to it (Strathern 2005). This point reflects the
argument in the NESTA report on ‘hidden innovation’ that government assessments
are inadequate for making networks and collaborations visible, but it is questionable
whether such everyday interactions can usefully be made an object of inspection.
35 Expert witness report
36 Expert witness report
Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 61