Interdisciplinary education
On these pages, we use the concept of ‘interdisciplinarity’ as an umbrella term for cross-cutting studies aimed at promoting an understanding of or solving problems at the crossroads between individual disciplines. In the literature, however, a distinction is sometimes made between different types of cross-cutting studies. The most common are:
- Interdisciplinary studies proper: Groups or individuals integrate information, data, methods, perspectives and/or theories from two or more disciplines. In certain cases this leads to the emergence of new disciplines.
- Multidisciplinary studies or multidisciplinarity: Representatives of different disciplines work independently on a common problem. All representatives regard the problem from the perspective of their own discipline and thereby complement one another.
- Transdisciplinary studies: Collaborations in which perspectives from different academic disciplines and non-academic sources are integrated. This includes interdisciplinary research in collaboration with the wider community.
The term ‘interdisciplinarity’ as used in this guidance accommodates all of these concepts.
What is interdisciplinary education?
There are many ways for a student to obtain an interdisciplinary education. Traditionally, one of the most common ways has of course been for students to combine freestanding courses in their degree without involving the departments concerned. What we will mainly discuss here, however, is how two or more departments can cooperate to deliver interdisciplinary education to students by developing a course or a degree programme. This is already done, often between relatively closely related disciplines and more infrequently between subjects in different faculties and disciplinary domains.
Here are a few examples of different types of interdisciplinary education, with varying degrees of integration between the subjects involved:
Interdisciplinary courses, for example
- A course with components ordered from another subject area, for example, by engaging a guest lecturer from another discipline
- An interdisciplinary course with integrated subject matter, created and conducted in cooperation between lecturers with backgrounds in different subjects
- An interdisciplinary course taught by a single lecturer who personally has an interdisciplinary profile
Interdisciplinary programmes, for example
- Components of individual courses as above
- A programme with (whole) courses ordered from another department or faculty
- A programme run by two or more departments together, but where many of the courses included belong to a specific main field of study
- A programme based on integrated courses given by several departments together
The various types of interdisciplinary courses and programmes, with a greater or lesser degree of integration between the subjects included, all have their possibilities and their challenges. This guidance aims primarily to provide support and advice for the more integrated forms of interdisciplinary education.