Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

7. Obstacles to interdisciplinary innovation
7.1.1 Silos
Is there a ‘problem’ that are we aiming to ‘solve’ in this report? The commonplace
characterisation of the kind of structures that oppose interdisciplinary innovation is
that of the ‘silo’. The metaphor implies depth (of knowledge), accumulation, and
investment in resources (of knowledge) against some future time in which they might
be required. The silo metaphor also implies protection (against leakage or vermin).
But most importantly, the walls of the silo are a barrier that prevents both knowledge,
and the people holding that knowledge, from encounters with the outside world.
Those kinds of encounter are fundamental to innovation, which requires that an idea
move into a commercial context, or that an organisation applies knowledge that it has
not used before. When we use the word ‘interdisciplinary’ in this report, we really
mean the things that happen when it is necessary to work across silos, but we do not
want to suggest that disciplines are bad in themselves, so working across them is an
opportunity, not an attempt to solve a specific problem.
The conception of knowledge as a cumulative resource, to be added to and
safeguarded, naturally leads to the development of something like a silo, as the place
where the knowledge will be stored and organised. However, speaking as if
knowledge is a cumulative resource obscures the social relations of knowledge
production. Social relations are also obscured in the commercial and policy emphasis
on intellectual property at the core of the knowledge economy. The notion of IP is
underpinned by an emphasis on conceptions of the individual (the inventor) rather
than the social context in which interdisciplinary innovation generally arises, and
similarly presupposes a particular model of knowledge production at the expense of
more collaborative practices productive of different modes of knowledge.
In academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences, reward structures and
professional development are heavily skewed towards individual appraisal and
accomplishment. Individuals are encouraged to publish in journals specific to their
own disciplines in order to further their own careers. Where research findings might
be of relevance to practitioners from other disciplines the pressures of career
development may act as a barrier to wider dissemination through publishing in
journals relevant to these disciplines. In a highly competitive ‘publish or die’
environment the funneling effect of publishing in disciplinary specific journals is
significant.
There is also some stigma attached to be the label ‘interdisciplinary’, such that
relatively junior academics yet to establish themselves in the academic hierarchy as
effective disciplinary practitioners might well damage their career prospects by being
labeled as someone that is interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary engagement is often the
domain of more senior academics already well placed in the hierarchy and with less to
risk by stepping outside of the boundaries of their disciplines.
Innovation and Interdisciplinarity 71