Cross-disciplinary Research Collaboration Research Articles

A Review on Scaling Up Successful Agricultural Extension Techniques for Global Benefit

Agricultural extension services are important for enhancing agricultural productivity, food security, and rural development. Examination of future and research needs highlights the significance of innovative approaches and emerging technologies, such as digital agriculture, precision farming, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and biotechnology, in transforming extension services. These technologies offer the potential to optimize resource use, increase yields, and improve supply chain transparency. Comprehensive impact assessments, including randomized controlled trials and mixed-methods approaches, are essential for evaluating the effectiveness of extension programs and understanding their long-term impacts on productivity, food security, and livelihoods. Supportive policy development and advocacy efforts are crucial for creating an enabling environment that promotes innovation, collaboration, and sustainable practices. This includes establishing regulatory frameworks, providing financial incentives, and integrating extension services into national development plans. Cross-disciplinary research and international collaboration are key to addressing the complex challenges facing agriculture, fostering the exchange of knowledge and best practices, and enhancing the capacity of national extension systems. Interdisciplinary research teams and systems thinking approaches can provide comprehensive solutions to agricultural challenges, while international research networks and development assistance programs can facilitate the transfer of appropriate technologies and practices. South-South cooperation offers additional opportunities for knowledge exchange and technology transfer between developing countries. By addressing these future directions and research needs, agricultural extension services can effectively contribute to sustainable agricultural development, improved livelihoods for farmers, and greater resilience to climate change. This approach will ensure that extension services remain responsive to the evolving challenges and opportunities in the agricultural sector, ultimately promoting global food security and economic growth.

How new generation techniques are shaping the future of environmental sciences

This perspective highlights the role of new-generation analytical techniques in future applications in environmental sciences since the shift to the One Health research paradigm. It reviews the interactions between the compartments of One Health and indicates the current challenges in traditional environmental research. The term One Health was first used at the beginning of the 20th century, yet much is still needed for the cross-disciplinary research collaboration required in this approach.

Interactive IoT Cloud Deep Learning Model for Research Development in Universities for the Educational Think Tank

The construction of university education think tanks using the interactive service platform enables the sharing of research resources, encourages cross-disciplinary research collaboration, and fosters innovation in education. It also helps to build a stronger relationship between academia and industry by enabling practitioners to participate in research activities. The Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to collect and analyze data from various sources, including sensors and other connected devices, to provide insights into education-related issues. The integration of these technologies in university education thinks tanks can help to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of research, decision-making, and collaboration processes. Hence, this paper constructed an Interactive IoT Cloud Computing Platform (IIoTCC). With IIoTCC model the innovative idea about research and other ideas are collected and stored in a Cloud environment. Within the environment, information collected is stored in the stacked architecture model with the voting-based model. Through the stacked model, information is processed and evaluated for academic activities. The IoT environment is implemented through IIoTCC for the information process in a deep learning environment for academic-related issues. Simulation analysis expressed that IIoTCC model achieves a higher accuracy rate of 99.34% which is significantly higher than conventional classifiers.

Globally Accessible Distributed Data Sharing (GADDS): a decentralized FAIR platform to facilitate data sharing in the life sciences.

MotivationTechnical advances have revolutionized the life sciences and researchers commonly face challenges associated with handling large amounts of heterogeneous digital data. The Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles provide a framework to support effective data management. However, implementing this framework is beyond the means of most researchers in terms of resources and expertise, requiring awareness of metadata, policies, community agreements and other factors such as vocabularies and ontologies.ResultsWe have developed the Globally Accessible Distributed Data Sharing (GADDS) platform to facilitate FAIR-like data-sharing in cross-disciplinary research collaborations. The platform consists of (i) a blockchain-based metadata quality control system, (ii) a private cloud-like storage system and (iii) a version control system. GADDS is built with containerized technologies, providing minimal hardware standards and easing scalability, and offers decentralized trust via transparency of metadata, facilitating data exchange and collaboration. As a use case, we provide an example implementation in engineered living material technology within the Hybrid Technology Hub at the University of Oslo.Availability and implementationDemo version available at https://github.com/pavelvazquez/GADDS.Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The gulf of cross-disciplinary research collaborations on global river basins is not narrowed

Using publications in the Web of Science database (WoS), this study investigates the research collaboration on the top 95 most researched global river basins since 1900. The links of both the disciplines involved and the management issues studied between the biophysical, economic, societal, climatic and governance sub-systems of these river basins were examined. We found that research collaborations were dominated within the biophysical sub-system (65.3%) since the knowledge predevelopment period (1900–1983), with continuous increases (by 18.5%) during the rapid development (1984–2000) and the stabilisation (12.9% increase) (2001–2017). However, research collaborations related to the societal sub-system remained marginalised (varied at about 1%), while those related to the governance sub-system expanded in issues studied (32.8%) but were not supported by the core governance disciplines (3.4%). The key findings explained why global river basins are degraded from the perspective of knowledge development and they can assist the strategic planning and management of scientific research for improving governance capacity in modifying the relationship between human and nature on river basins in the Anthropocene. Tackling challenges in the Anthropocene requires transformation of the current pattern of knowledge development, a revolution in the governance of science.

Identifying actions to foster cross-disciplinary global health research: a mixed-methods qualitative case study of the IMPALA programme on lung health and tuberculosis in Africa.

ObjectivesTo identify actions for fostering cross-disciplinary research (CDR) skills and collaborations in global health, and to produce recommendations for improving the design, implementation and management of cross-disciplinary global health research programmes.DesignUsing a North–South global health research programme as a case study—and following an adapted framework—we conducted qualitative research using document reviews, semi-structured interviews (purposive sampling) and participatory observation. We used baseline survey findings to identify potential interviewees and tailor interview guides.SettingOur case study was a 4.5-year (2017–2021) programme, namely, the International Multidisciplinary Programme to Address Lung Health and Tuberculosis in Africa (IMPALA). Led by a UK research institute, IMPALA spanned 22 partner organisations from 13 countries (10 in sub-Saharan Africa), and involved five research discipline groups: clinical science, social science, health systems, health economics and policy/research capacity.ParticipantsThirty-one IMPALA members were interviewed (July 2018–November 2019), with interviewees evenly split by gender (16 female and 15 male) and by Global North/South institution (15 non-African and 16 African). Twenty-five (81%) were researchers, comprising 18 senior researchers (professors, readers, associate professors and senior lecturers) and seven early career researchers (assistant professors, lecturers, research fellows, postdocs, research assistants and PhD students). Twenty-four programme events were observed (September 2018–April 2020) and 49 documents were reviewed (December 2017–April 2020). All 66 IMPALA staff were sent the baseline survey, receiving 51 responses (43/56 researchers and 8/10 non-researchers).ResultsFourteen themes emerged, which suggested that CDR—while valued by many—is not universally understood, and the time it requires is often underestimated. We found that fostering CDR and managing tensions needs planning and continuous discussions and interactions. A shared vision with explicitly agreed goals and roles and active management of cross-disciplinary activities is essential.ConclusionsActive planning, implementation and management of cross-disciplinary activities are essential for the success of cross-disciplinary global health research and should be separate from the primary research activities.

A large National Institute for Health\xa0Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre facilitates impactful cross-disciplinary and collaborative translational research publications and research collaboration\xa0networks: a bibliometric evaluation study

BackgroundThe evaluation of translational health research is important for various reasons such as the research impact assessment, research funding allocation, accountability, and strategic research policy formulation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the research productivity, strength and diversity of research collaboration networks and impact of research supported by a large biomedical research centre in the United Kingdom (UK).MethodsBibliometric analysis of research publications by translational researchers affiliated with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) from April 2012 to March 2017.ResultsAnalysis included 2377 translational research publications that were published during the second 5-year funding period of the NIHR Oxford BRC. Author details were available for 99.75% of the publications with DOIs (2359 of 2365 with DOIs), and the number of authors per publication was median 9 (mean = 18.03, SD = 3.63, maximum = 2467 authors). Author lists also contained many consortia, groups, committees, and teams (n = 165 in total), with 1238 additional contributors, where membership was reported. The BRC co-authorship i.e., research collaboration network for these publications involved 20,229 nodes (authors, of which 1606 nodes had Oxford affiliations), and approximately 4.3 million edges (authorship linkages). Articles with a valid DOIs (2365 of 2377, 99.5%) were collectively cited more than 155,000 times and the average Field Citation Ratio was median 6.75 (geometric mean = 7.12) while the average Relative Citation Ratio was median 1.50 (geometric mean = 1.83) for the analysed publications.ConclusionsThe NIHR Oxford BRC generated substantial translational research publications and facilitated a huge collaborative network of translational researchers working in complex structures and consortia, which shows success across the whole of this BRC funding period. Further research involving continued uptake of unique persistent identifiers and the tracking of other research outputs such as clinical innovations and patents would allow a more detailed understanding of large research enterprises such as NIHR BRCs in the UK.

Data for: The gulf of cross-disciplinary research collaborations is not narrowed

Data for: The gulf of cross-disciplinary research collaborations is not narrowed

Data for: The gulf of cross-disciplinary research collaborations is not narrowed

Data for: The gulf of cross-disciplinary research collaborations is not narrowed

From urban underground space (UUS) to sustainable underground urbanism (SUU): Shifting the focus in urban underground scholarship

This viewpoint argues that for sustainable urban development the relationship between the city and the ground beneath it needs increased attention. The underground volume might provide additional urban space, but it cannot be treated in the same way as above-ground space. Cross-disciplinary research and professional collaboration are needed to better understand (a) the variety of processes at play, and (b) the role of geotechnical engineers and geoscientists in working towards sustainable underground urbanism.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the University of Bath: An opportunity

The United Nations (UN) has designated the 2020s as the “decade of action” to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper responds to the call for universities to join this effort by reviewing how the University of Bath could support the SDGs more fully. A first step is monitor alignment of teaching and research with the 17 SDG goals. Having reviewed how to do this, we then review their role in relation to university management and stakeholder engagement, considering in turn how this can be linked with action on climate change, local collaboration and civic partnerships, engagement with the business sector, international networking, and the role of the SDGs in University league tables and rankings. We conclude with eight recommendations. These cover steps to strengthen a sense of shared purpose among staff and students, increase public awareness of what the University does, and facilitate cross-disciplinary research collaboration and innovative teaching. Universities can choose how far to align themselves with the SDGs over the next decade, but not how far the SDGs will be used by others to evaluate them.

CTS teams: a new model for translational team training and team science intervention.

Clinical/translational science (CTS) is team-based, requiring effective collaboration and communication across many disciplines involving a variety of stakeholders. We implemented a pre-doctoral team-based training model with didactic and experiential curricular interventions to support the development of CTS research skills in a cross-disciplinary team environment. We assessed the potential impact of this new training model as a team science intervention that can catalyze new cross-disciplinary collaborations across the institution. Between 2016 and 2020, 32 pre-doctoral students and 26 co-mentors participated in the assessment of the CTS Team program over a two-year period of TL1 training grant support. Data collection and analyses followed a program logic model and used a variety of metrics for clinical and translational scientist career success. CTS training in the context of CTS Teams supported improved self-efficacy for clinical research skills and resulted in a significant increase in the frequency of participation in cross-disciplinary collaborative activities by both trainees and mentors. Most CTS Team co-mentor pairs had not previously collaborated. Two-thirds of the co-mentors plan to continue collaborating, and most (85%) currently use or plan to use collaboration tools, for example, written collaboration plans, authorship agreements. The CTS Team training model provides a unique clinical and translational science team training experience that embeds authentic cross-disciplinary research collaboration into PhD research projects. It establishes trainee cohorts that are diverse in terms of scientific disciplines and translational research phases, and creates a new cross-disciplinary community of practice across faculty members and research groups in multiple colleges.

When silence goes viral, Africa sneezes! A perspective on Africa's subdued research response to COVID-19 and a call for local scientific evidence

By mid-September 2020, over 1.33 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 32 thousand deaths had been reported in Africa. Global research on COVID-19 went ‘viral’ with a record 3487 research contributions comprising of 2062 journal papers and 1425 preprints published within the first three months following the outbreak of COVID-19. Surprisingly, the silence of the African research community has been unprecedented – contributing a paltry 0.6% (22 contributions), a figure nearly matched by Colombia (18 publications). Until now, a comprehensive perspective on the reasons for this subdued research response, and COVID-19 themes critical to Africa has been missing. We posit that while a milieu of factors accounts for this silence, unprecedented research opportunities exist to support COVID-19 decision and policy formulation in Africa. The subdued response reflects weak research systems, characterized by deep-rooted challenges, including severe lack of research expertise, funding, and infrastructure, coupled with poor working conditions. Hence, Africa's contribution to research on infectious diseases, including COVID-19, remains weak. Perceptions and attitudes among researchers and policy-makers on COVID-19, and the role of science in decision and policy-making also exist. Moreover, COVID-19 and earlier severe acute respiratory syndromes are considered as ‘imported diseases’ originating from outside Africa. Thus, notions may exist that the control methods will come from outside Africa through ‘technology-transfer’ or ‘capacity-building’. Yet local COVID-19 research is needed to address knowledge gaps, including; (1) potential novel transmission of SARS-CoV-2, (2) adaption of generic COVID-19 control measures to suit African settings, (3) occurrence and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in solid waste, wastewaters, on-site sanitation systems, and drinking water, and (4) the ‘human factor’ including the role of gender, perceptions, myths, attitudes, and religious beliefs in the transmission and control of COVID-19. Therefore, there is a need to: (1) strengthen local research capacity and evaluation systems, (2) consider biosafety and ethical issues, (3) initiate cross-disciplinary research and global collaboration on COVID-19, and (4) integrate science communication in COVID-19 programs.

“Unpacking” Cross-Disciplinary Research Collaboration in the Social Sciences and Humanities

In this article, we, a team of scholars from Project Unpack, detail our process of successful cross-disciplinary collaboration. We include a discussion of the aims of our collaborative project, our process of collaboration and the roles of each individual organizer, the resources we used to support the collaboration, data sharing practices, and how our research approaches and methodologies have been influenced by engaging in collaborative research. Our collaboration has led us to record and develop a series of nexus points that bring people together, which enabled us to create space for people to tell their stories and listen to others.

Building Cross-Disciplinary Research Collaborations.

As a broad and heterogeneous diagnosis, stroke stands at the intersection of many related specialties. Thus, stroke researchers have a unique opportunity to collaborate across a wide range of clinical and basic science disciplines. In addition to the more obvious collaboration opportunities (eg working with cardiologists on clinical trials with composite cardiovascular outcomes), stroke researchers may work in fields as diverse as primary care, oncology, obstetrics, cognitive neuroscience, physiology, biomedical engineering, environmental science, and health disparities. Cross-disciplinary biomedical research synthesizes expertise from diverse contributing disciplines and develops new scientific approaches to address complex problems in health.1 Cross-disciplinary approaches can be as simple as research collaborations involving several medical subspecialties. More complex endeavors, such as collaborations between clinical researchers and scientists from widely different disciplines (eg engineers or social scientists), may be termed transdisciplinary research; however, similar principles apply. For the purposes of this discussion, we refer to the entire spectrum of multidisciplinary collaborative research as cross-disciplinary research. Collaborating with investigators outside your own field requires more than just adding a coauthor to a paper or proposal. True collaborations will not always be without conflict. Navigating the challenges of cross-disciplinary research successfully can lead to significant rewards in terms of job satisfaction and career development, and most importantly, to the advancement of scientific understanding. Early career vascular neurologists interested in growing robust cross-disciplinary research collaborations might consider the following approaches. A good research question identifies a gap in knowledge about a specific problem, which, in turn, may require expertise from multiple scientific disciplines to answer. For example, a stroke neurologist investigating intracranial atherosclerosis might collaborate with a vascular surgeon studying peripheral vascular disease, a radiologist studying vessel wall imaging, or a biomedical engineer measuring arterial compliance. Alternatively, a stroke neurologist might be interested in rare causes of stroke affecting a …

Connective Tissue: Practice as Research in Cross-disciplinary Research Collaborations

Practice as Research (PaR and its associated forms) is becoming established within a knowledge paradigm encompassing a broad spectrum of different artistic research practices in the performing arts. In this short essay, Hansen first acknowledges and describes methodological characteristics of this work, which appear across different discussions and examples. The author’s primary objectives, however, are to look at PaR in relationship to broadly established scientific and interpretive research paradigms; to identify the points of negotiation that cross-disciplinary research entails; and to discuss the additional capacity of PaR as ‘connective tissue’ between, for example, creative practice and scientific research. These objectives are driven by the observation that contemporary socio-environmental challenges are too complex to be addressed through segregated, discipline-specific research alone.

New Directions

New Directions Heather Snell The year 2017 has brought some significant changes to Jeunesse. In addition to hiring a new managing editor, Lauren Bosc, and a new copy editor, Claire Wilkshire, we have moved the preceding managing editor, Larissa Wodtke, to a position on the editorial board and welcomed four new editors: Sally Campbell Galman, Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in the United States; children’s and Victorian literature scholar Jennifer Harrison, who teaches at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, US; Haifeng Hui, Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Languages at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China; and Jo Lampert, Professor of Education at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. These new editors have not only enriched an already vibrant culture at Jeunesse but have also added to our expertise, further enabling us to work with authors from various disciplines and aiding in editing submissions from those parts of the world previously not represented on the board. While in the past our board has been dominated by Canadian scholars working in English departments and—more recently—by one scholar outside Canada working in the social sciences, we can now proclaim much greater interdisciplinarity and geographical diversity. This shift has happened gradually and with great care on the part of Jeunesse’s editors. Having begun as an academic, peer-reviewed journal working within a bilingual national frame—Canadian Children’s Literature (CCL)/Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse (LCJ)—Jeunesse has moved to an international and interdisciplinary scope, a transition that was neither something that could happen overnight nor something we wanted to force prematurely. Rather, the development of Jeunesse as a journal fundamentally different from its predecessor has proceeded in a way that seems natural in terms of the submissions we have been receiving since 2008 and the changing makeup of our editorial board. It took some time before scholars [End Page 1] working outside English departments felt comfortable considering Jeunesse as a venue for their work, and it has taken time to amass the expertise required to edit international and interdisciplinary submissions. As these have gradually expanded to include disciplines and fields that it had not been possible to publish under the umbrella of a national, predominantly Anglophone journal, and as editors with varying backgrounds and specializations have come and gone over the last nine years, Jeunesse has undergone a succession of small changes. Taken together, these changes represent a major transformation. It is our hope that we will continue to receive both interdisciplinary submissions and submissions from a range of disciplines and national contexts that explore topics, themes, and texts pertinent to young people. This last Jeunesse issue of 2017 also marks a collaboration with the Association for Research in Cultures of Young People (ARCYP), which hosted a conference in October 2016 entitled Youngsters: On the Cultures of Children and Youth (Youngsters 2016). The conference, which attracted a wide range of artists, activists, international scholars, and professionals working within the humanities and social sciences, convened at Simon Fraser University’s downtown Harbour Centre campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Rarely have I seen so many different disciplines represented at a conference. That such a wide range of approaches emerged at a conference run by a small, albeit growing, association is even more remarkable. Youngsters 2016 exemplifies the ongoing work of consolidating research on young people’s texts and cultures to clear a space for inter- and cross-disciplinary dialogue and research collaborations. Reflecting the diversity of the participants, some of the papers presented at Youngsters 2016 were interdisciplinary productions in and of themselves. The opportunity to witness collaboration among scholars from different discursive realms and, in some cases, different countries, was, at least for me, a refreshing change from those conferences that express a desire for interdisciplinarity and transnationalism but for some reason or another could not achieve it in practice. In the second editorial of this issue, outgoing ARCYP President Stuart Poyntz and incoming ARCYP President Naomi Hamer reflect on this landmark conference and introduce the three articles that came out of it and that are now included in this issue...

Network analysis to evaluate cross-disciplinary research collaborations: The Human Sensing Research Center, Korea

Government-funded research collaborations have received increased attention in science and engineering policies. Public support programs designed to encourage group research efforts by university research centers may have direct/indirect effects on the way they build cross-disciplinary linkages and research collaboration networks. We present empirical evidence on how the group research support program affects the formation of research collaboration networks. This study utilized a method of network analysis as an evaluation tool to address whether the Science/Engineering Research Center program, the first government-sponsored university research center program in Korea, has been successful in forming research collaboration networks that promote cross-disciplinary group research activities. The results shows that the research collaboration networks are implemented by the group research support program as intended. They lead to relational dynamics which promote dissemination of knowledge across a broad range of research fields and combine research activities related to the different science and engineering capabilities and expertise.

Neighbourhood Effects Influencing Early Childhood Development: Conceptual Model and Trial Measurement Methodologies from the Kids in Communities Study

Socio-environmental factors, including the neighbourhoods in which children live and grow, are key determinants of children’s developmental outcomes. Thus, it is important to examine and consider the relationships between these factors and the multiple contexts that influence children. Drawing on a broad disciplinary range of existing research, we aimed to develop a conceptual model of neighbourhood effects influencing early childhood development. The neighbourhood effects literature was reviewed with a specific focus on existing models and frameworks. This review was then further expanded through consultation with our cross-disciplinary research collaboration (Kids in Communities Study Collaboration). From this a theoretical model specific to early childhood development was developed. The hypothesised model comprised five interconnected domains: physical, social, service, socio-economic, and governance. A small trial of indicator measurement was conducted and findings were used to make a series of recommendations regarding measures or indicators which might provide useful and effective for neighbourhood effects research. The proposed model provides a useful and novel conceptual framework for classifying neighbourhood effects research. By synthesising disparate but related areas of research, the resultant five domains provide a useful approach to understanding and measuring child development in the context of community and environment, therefore advancing knowledge in this area. Expanding the current neighbourhood effects paradigm to accommodate broader constructs appears critical in considering the multiple environments that may act as key determinants of children’s wellbeing and psychosocial outcomes.

Three strategies for bridging different levels of analysis and embracing the biopsychosocial model.

The five review articles in this special issue describe the progress that has been made forging links between personality and social psychological theories, methods, and results with biological, social, and cultural factors related to physical health. However, many efforts have fallen short of the goals of the biopsychosocial model. The rationale and description of 3 strategies to achieve a fuller integration across different levels of analysis are highlighted: (a) more cross-disciplinary research collaborations and training; (b) systematic efforts to make research and theory more clinically relevant; and (c) striving for more representative samples, settings, and outcomes.