Following our annual Workshop in May we at the ISRF discussed the benefits of drawing on the knowledge and experience of a group of interdisciplinary scholars, and realised that in addition to funding projects on very disparate topics, we had the opportunity to ask a series of interesting questions of this group and have them answered from a range of disciplinary (and interdisciplinary) perspectives. What could this reveal to us about the nature interdisciplinary research?
To this end, this issue of the ISRF Bulletin has taken as its focus some of the key areas of discussion at the Workshop on the theme of interdisciplinarity and innovation:
What role do established academic disciplines play within interdisciplinary work, and how should they be integrated?
How could interdisciplinary work be considered ‘innovative’?
What are the obstacles that face the interdisciplinary researcher, and how can they be overcome?
