Today’s post is about a concept I learned in a National Academies report called convergence. The term sounds a bit odd for a mathematician like me, but it won’t when you think about rivers coming together. It basically adds a layer to the now familiar concept of interdisciplinary research. Where interdisciplinary research is research at the intersection of multiple fields, convergent research is research that combines separate streams and creates something new. The National Academies report, based on a workshop held in September 2013, is titled “Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering and Beyond.” The report brief states that the report “focuses on the need for convergence – an approach to problem solving that integrates the knowledge, tools, and ways of thinking from multiple scientific disciplines, including economic, social and behavioral sciences.” The authors give the example of genomics, which resulted from the combination of genetics, chemistry, optics and bioinformatics. They point out the convergent projects funded by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), for instance one on electrofuels. Another example provided in the full report is about how 3-D printing will bring new healthcare options.
They recommend to:
- organize around a common theme, problem or scientific challenge,
- implement management structures tailored to the challenges to convergence in each institution,
- foster opportunities to interact formally and informally,
- change existing faculty structures and reward systems,
- work with and across existing departments,
- embed support for convergence in the promotion and tenure process,
- design facilities and workspaces for convergent research,
- design education and training programs that foster convergence,
- establish partnership arrangements across institutions,
- explore sources of funding within and beyond government agencies.
They also make specific recommendations for different actors: a national vision-setting body, a funder of science and technology innovation, an academic leader, a government laboratory, an industry, medical or regulatory stakeholder.
One thing they might have left out, or they overlooked, is the need to create new academic journals or new departments in existing academic journals specifically for convergent research instead of trying to make convergent research fit into existing departments of existing publications.
The full report provides two examples of radical reorganizations of faculty structures: Arizona State University, which got rid of departments and instead created 23 schools centered around themes and the Janelia Research Campus (funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute), which was created without any departmental affiliations or tenure. Half its staff has had initial training in biology and half in physics, computer science and engineering. For universities less inclined toward radical reorganization, interdepartmental institutes of centers. As of the report’s writing, “the top 25 research universities in the US average[d] more than 100 research centers, many of which are organized in discipline-crossing ways.” Other examples of centers and institutes are Bio-X at Stanford, Wyss Institute, the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center at the University of Missouri. Many universities have undertaken cluster hiring.
The report also states: “A reward structure that emphasizes individual investigator-driven research and publication and questions of how credit is assigned for multi-investigator-led projects represent widely acknowledged challenges to any form of interdisciplinary or collaborative research, including convergence.”
In 2019, a workshop was held on “Fostering the Culture of Convergence in Research,” which expanded on many of the ideas above. I particularly enjoyed the section “Evaluation criteria and metrics for success”, especially enabling researcher recognition and advancement: funding proposals, publications, promotion and tenure. I also enjoyed the ideas in the “Funding convergence” section, including joint proposal solicitations and possibly supporting people rather than projects.
I think there may be a need for more detailed success stories on convergent research: what are best practices in identifying collaborators, in working with them, in generating the initial idea, in refining the research, in keeping track of everyone’s contributions and appropriate reward structures.
Finally, when I read “Finally, universities are making investments in new buildings specially designed to house convergent institutes and foster interactions across disciplines as well as new types of core facilities that serve as gathering places and resources on campus, along with their associated technical staff,“ I was reminded of SMU’s new Gerard J. Ford Hall for Research and Innovation, which does exactly that. Make sure to watch the video toward the end to see how beautiful the building is. Or better yet, come and visit!