Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with ...

trained to enter a research ecosystem in which different disciplines must work
together to address a problem.
This is far more characteristic of interdisciplinary research consortia such as Equator
(see earlier boxed evidence), rather than more topically focused doctoral training
centres.
If this ability to respond to problems in an innovative way is more characteristic of
professional preparation than of conventional research training – we recommend that
the suitability of some of the emerging higher education and doctoral training
programmes are reviewed against the critical success factors and capacities identified
by our analysis.
8.6. Conclusion
Interdisciplinary working offers significant opportunity for radical innovation, and
can be an essential enabler of the capacity to respond to future challenges that do not
conform to today’s structures of knowledge and organisation. Interdisciplinary
innovation achieves those ends in a manner that is highly dependent on personal
strengths and experiences of expert practitioners, resisting many embedded
institutional forms of organization and evaluation. Nevertheless, it is possible to
recognize and enable the conditions in which such practitioners are able to innovate
effectively and repeatedly. This report describes the real nature of interdisciplinary
innovation, and the contextual factors that are respectively supportive or obstructive
of the valuable outcomes that it produces for society.
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