Exploring the Role of Team Leaders and their Perceptions of Barriers to Conducting Interdisciplinary Research

Researchers in the twenty-first century are faced with complex problems that require multi-faceted solutions. To confront these intractable problems—whether they are health, social, or economic crises—there is a need for researchers to work across disciplines and apply multiple perspectives. Interdisciplinary research (IDR) refers to individuals from various disciplines working together, integrating ideas, methods and theories, to address a common problem. Although IDR may be key to developing solutions to the crises we are facing today, researchers pursuing interdisciplinarity encounter a diverse range of personal, structural, and political challenges. While some impediments are caused by researchers lack of openness to alternate ways of conducting research, others are rooted in the structural aspects of academic institutions including unfavorable promotion and tenure guidelines, which do not credit IDR contributions at par with disciplinary work. In addition to handling some of the common challenges leaders encounter, IDR leaders are required to manage multiple levels, from ensuring team members are motivated at the individual level, bridging communication across disciplines and paradigms at the team level, to operating within varying promotion and tenure guidelines at the institutional level. Current literature provided limited insights into the role of IDR leaders and the barriers they encounter. To better understand these phenomena, I sought to explore the barriers and role of IDR team leaders—using a social ecological model framework—in this study. Employing a qualitative case study research design, I conducted interviews with leaders of a X-Grants, an interdisciplinary seed grant initiative at Texas A&M University, and utilized relevant secondary data sources to supplement and triangulate findings from interviews. Participants indicated encountering barriers at the individual, team, institutional, community, and policy levels. Because of the range and nature of barriers impeding interdisciplinary teams, my findings uncovered that the role of principal investigators (PIs) is multi-faceted and requires them to manage three key components: the team’s intellectual direction, interpersonal interactions, and project management. This study has implications for both theory and practice. By approaching my research questions from a social ecological model and complex dynamics systems perspective, my analysis not only provides a unique lens with which to view IDR teams, but also adds to the emerging conversation in the literature. A social ecological model perspective reveals that there is interaction within and among levels, with influences from the context or setting. A complex dynamic system of interaction explains that factors dynamically influence each other over time In practice, findings from this study have the potential to inform future steps for strengthening the IDR initiatives in universities and funding agencies. By developing a better understanding of the challenges and role of IDR team leaders, HRD practitioners are likely to develop holistic interventions that address multiple dimensions of a problem rather than tackling an issue merely at the tip of the iceberg