Expertise Across Disciplines: Establishing Common Ground in Interdisciplinary Disaster Research Teams

AbstractHazards and disasters arise from interactions between environmental and social processes, so interdisciplinary research is crucial in understanding and effectively managing them. Despite support and encouragement from funding agencies, universities, and journals and growing interest from researchers, interdisciplinary disaster research teams face significant obstacles, such as the difficulty of establishing effective communication and understanding across disciplines. Better understanding of interdisciplinary teamwork can also have important practical benefits for operational disaster planning and  response.Social studies of science distinguish different kinds of expertise and different modes of communication. Understanding these differences can help interdisciplinary research teams communicate more clearly and work together more effectively. The primary role of a researcher is incontributory expertise (the ability to make original contributions to a discipline); butinteractional expertise in other disciplines (the ability to understand their literature and communicate with their practitioners) can play an important role in interdisciplinary collaborations. Developing interactional expertise requires time and effort, which can be challenging for a busy researcher, and also requires a foundation of trust and communication among team members. Three distinct aspects of communication play important roles in effective interdisciplinary communication:dialects,metaphors, an...
Source: Risk Analysis - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Perspective Source Type: research