This panel discussion marks the opening event of the Bristol Vision Institute seminar series for Teaching Block 1 (TB1). At the event, we will also announce the speaker line-up for the remainder of this calendar year.
We use the word interdisciplinarity a lot. But what does it actually mean in practice, and how is it different from simply bringing different disciplines, methods or perspectives into the same project?
Bristol Vision Institute (BVI) was founded in 2008 around the strength of research across disciplinary boundaries. It brings together researchers from psychology and neuroscience, biological sciences, engineering, computer science, medicine, ophthalmology, the creative arts and other fields around a shared interest in vision. BVI has always provided a space for disciplines to meet around problems that cannot easily be owned by one field alone.
For this panel, we want to take a broader look at interdisciplinarity itself.
What does interdisciplinarity mean in practice? What conditions are necessary for it to happen? How much depends on research culture, institutional structures and opportunities to meet people outside our immediate discipline, and how much depends on the mindset of individual researchers and practitioners?
Can an interdisciplinary mindset be taught? Do we need to be educated or “brought up” academically in a way that encourages us to question disciplinary assumptions and become comfortable working with different discourses, methods and ways of knowing?
We will also consider where integration needs to happen. Does interdisciplinarity begin when we define the problem, when we select the methods, or when different forms of evidence and expertise have to be brought together? And what happens when some of that expertise sits outside academia altogether?
There is also the practical question of funding and recognition. Interdisciplinary research is strongly encouraged, while funding, peer review, career structures and promotion are still often organised around disciplines. How do successful researchers navigate this? How should genuinely interdisciplinary proposals be reviewed when no individual reviewer can reasonably be expected to have expertise across the whole project?
Finally, why the emphasis on interdisciplinarity? When does it actually lead to better science, more creative problem-solving, greater relevance or stronger impact? When does it not? And what needs to change if institutions want interdisciplinarity to be more than an aspiration?
To explore these questions, we will be joined by three speakers whose work offers very different perspectives on working across boundaries.
Professor Marcus Munafò is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of Bath and an Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol. His career has crossed psychology, behavioural science, population health and research methodology, alongside a longstanding interest in research quality and research culture. As co-founder of the UK Reproducibility Network, his work also asks broader questions about how institutions, incentives and research systems shape the quality of science. His perspective brings together interdisciplinarity in research itself with the cultures and structures that enable — or constrain — it.
Professor Iain Gilchrist is Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, an Honorary Professor at the University of Bath and a longstanding member of the Bristol Vision Institute community, including previously serving on its management team. His work crosses psychology, neuroscience and vision science, with a particular interest in how eye and body movements allow us to sample and interact with the visual world. His research has also moved into applied and creative contexts, including audience research and collaboration around film, television and live performance. His work provides a good example of how a fundamental scientific problem can travel across methods, disciplines and applications.
Lucy Green is a PhD student at Bristol Veterinary School, studying the application of machine learning and computer vision to endoscopic analysis of upper airway function in Thoroughbred racehorses. Her PhD investigates the use of explainable artificial intelligence in the veterinary and horseracing industries, exploring how these tools can support the health and welfare of racehorses. She is also a member of the university's Animal Sensing group, looking at the application of multimodal sensors and computer vision to monitor the behaviour and wellbeing of animals.
We would very much like the audience to be part of the discussion, so please bring your own experiences, examples, frustrations and questions about interdisciplinary work.