Interdisciplinary Issues in Nanoscale Research
Nanoscale research is currently attracting tremendous attention from both the general public and from a large variety of science and engineering disciplines. The attraction is largely fostered by technological visions, the promises of new scientific discoveries, and huge governmental funds. Such a melting pot of various disciplines promises to be a great opportunity for innovative research through synergetic effects, provided that researchers from different disciplines find a common basis required for interdisciplinary research. If that is missing, however, disintegration is to be expected and researchers will at best do their disciplinary research business as usual, though under a new label. Therefore, the understanding and mediating of interdisciplinarity is a crucial factor in the future success of nanoscale research.
Definitions of nanoscale research define this field almost tautologically by the nanometer size of its objects. For instance, the US committee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) defines nanotechnology as: Research and technology development at the atomic, molecular or macromolecular levels, in the length scale of approximately 1-100 nanometer range, to provide a fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small and/or intermediate size.
In its original Latin meaning, which is still preserved in current English as well as in other European languages, the term ‘discipline’ (from Latin, ‘disciplina’) refers to a body of knowledge that is taught in a certain school. Students (disciples) learn a certain doctrine (a discipline) by obeying strict (disciplinary) rules of a school (discipline) and by practicing self-control (discipline). There is no disciplinary knowledge without a social context of transmission and education and a social body that thereby reproduces itself. Modern scientific disciplines do not differ much from that, except that they do not simply preserve but increase and modify a body of knowledge through scientific research – which requires even stricter methodological rules to preserve the continuity of the social body. Thus, a scientific discipline, as I will use the term in the following, comprises both cognitive and social aspects: (1) a body of knowledge, including concepts and beliefs (knowledge of objects), methods for increasing and securing knowledge (knowledge of methods), and values about judging the quality and importance of knowledge (knowledge of values); (2) a social body with effective rules and means for increasing, communicating, and teaching the body of knowledge as a way of self-reproduction.
The terms ‘multidisciplinary’, ‘interdisciplinary’, and ‘transdisciplinary’ have been used to describe research activities, research problems, research institutions, teaching, or a body of knowledge, each with an input from at least two scientific disciplines. Although confusion still abounds, there is some agreement that ‘multidisciplinary’ describes a rather loose, additive, or preliminary relation between the disciplines involved, whereas ‘interdisciplinary’ requires stronger ties, overlap, or integration. In some diachronic models, multidisciplinarity is a preliminary step toward interdisciplinarity, which can go as far as to either unify two or more disciplines or to create a new ‘interdisciplinary’ (hybrid) discipline at the interface of the mother disciplines. Transdisciplinarity is a diachronic (if not a political or ‘antidisciplinary’) concept to describe a state of research or knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries, with continuous input from various disciplines but without any inclination to consolidate into a new (hybrid) discipline. On the opposite side of this is ‘superinterdisciplinarity’, a term used to describe a new unity of all or at least of many sciences.
Nanotechnology is, at this point in time, a multidisciplinary collection of fields. These fields, in turn, draw on, and integrate knowledge from, a wide range of diverse fields in different ways. The present findings suggest that as part of the future development of nanoscience and nanoengineering, attention needs to be paid to facilitating the diffusion and absorption of research across disciplines. Our findings emphasize the importance of assisting researchers’ ability to source knowledge from disparate areas. Potential barriers to cross-disciplinary knowledge sourcing are many, including difficulties of locating and understanding relevant research in other disciplinary contexts. Sharing relevant research across disciplines has long been fostered by mechanisms such as review articles that summarize findings in a given area.
We suggest two additional paths to nurture cross-disciplinary research. First, to enhance understanding of findings in other disciplines, we encourage attention be given to the language used to present essential findings. Authors and editors should strive to assure that the essential findings of nano-relevant research are presented so as to be as accessible as possible to researchers from other disciplines. For instance, work presented in a materials science journal may well hold high value for a nano-bio researcher. Minimizing jargon and acronyms (and we know that we use them here!), and checking understandability by researchers from other disciplines, should reduce the barriers to nano research knowledge transfer.
Second, to enhance the ability to locate relevant nano research, we encourage exposure to, if not training in, “infometrics” tools and methods to better locate relevant research by using leading databases, such as SCI, INSPEC, EI Compendex, and Chem Abstracts. By fostering cognitive cross-disciplinary relationships in these ways, we anticipate that the progress of nanotechnology research can only be enhanced.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2988207/
http://www.joachimschummer.net/books/discovering-the-nanoscale/schummer.pdf