From interdisciplinary to interdisciplinarity: American cases and implications

Abstract

<p indent="0mm">At present, under the complex background of scientific research paradigm change and fierce global competition, interdisciplinary has attracted more and more attention. In 2020, China’s education department and scientific research funding department have added interdisciplinary in their respective discipline layout, which is of landmark significance for China’s scientific development. However, we still lack experience in establishing and operating the system of interdisciplinary in the future. The United States has a relatively advanced system and referable experience in the development of interdisciplinary, so this paper takes the interdisciplinary layout of American National Science Foundation and American Department of Education as cases to organize the institutional setup, functions and proposal mechanism of interdisciplinary in American National Science Foundation, and to summarize the code changes, change criteria and degree awarding of interdisciplinary in Classification of Instructional Programs. From the perspective of the development logic and evolutionary connotation of interdisciplinary: (1) There is tension between the dynamic development and the institutional guarantee about interdisciplinary; (2) strengthening disciplinary collaboration can promote interdisciplinary cooperation; (3) cultivating the concept of multi-agent cooperation is beneficial to problem-oriented research; they are the logical implication of interdisciplinary. Finally, some suggestions are put forward for the future development of interdisciplinary in China. (1) To cultivate interdisciplinary ideas through forward-looking layout; (2) to solve practical problems by summarizing interdisciplinary scientific questions from different fields; (3) to give enough space for development through flexible management; (4) to improve the organizational mechanisms that are conducive to the development of interdisciplinary. They will be helpful for China to gradually move from interdisciplinary to interdisciplinarity.