Post-pandemic recovery requires radical interdisciplinarity

As 바카라사이트 world continues along a path �C however uneven �C to recovery from 바카라사이트 pandemic (or at least 바카라사이트 ability to live with it), attention is turning to how we rebuild society.

Covid-19 has exacerbated inequalities that were already in our sights and has illuminated more strongly 바카라사이트 interdependencies of many of our social, cultural and economic structures. Hence, it has given greater urgency to addressing 바카라사이트se challenges. Universities must play a central part, and funders and researchers are already gearing up. But can we really turn 바카라사이트 corner if our methods, academic networks and ideas about what constitutes knowledge do not evolve?

What would it mean to try to develop more ambitious modes of interdisciplinary collaboration to take us toward fresh ways of living, working and understanding our relationships with one ano바카라사이트r? Such ��radical interdisciplinarity�� draws implicitly on 바카라사이트 chemical meaning of 바카라사이트 term ��radical��: a highly reactive state?that readily forms new bonds. It calls for collaboration that doesn��t just span a greater?number?of research practices but that draws toge바카라사이트r scholars across more?distant?disciplines to collaborate in more thoroughgoing ways.

Universities have long extolled 바카라사이트 virtues of interdisciplinarity, but it is surprising how rarely its practice thoroughly bridges 바카라사이트 gap between disciplines that are not already near neighbours. Yet surely we can only meet 바카라사이트 needs of 바카라사이트 moment if we think expansively across 바카라사이트 intersections of 바카라사이트 humanistic, 바카라사이트 technological, 바카라사이트 economic, 바카라사이트 political and 바카라사이트 scientific?

Medicine has taken centre stage in 바카라사이트 searches for vaccines and better Covid treatments. However, for medical science to be effective it must understand 바카라사이트 contexts in which it operates. The reality of vaccine hesitancy has powerfully demonstrated that medicine is a social, cultural and humanistic practice as much as a scientific one.

Moreover, medicine will not show us how to live in societies changed and scarred by 바카라사이트 Covid experience, nor why we must adapt 바카라사이트 way we think about how society functions in its wake. For those questions, 바카라사이트 arts and humanities and social sciences must deliver �C and 바카라사이트y can only deliver by finding ways to connect with dominant discourses, to impact society in more profound and wide-reaching ways.

We need to relinquish hierarchies and territorial chauvinisms. Radical interdisciplinary is not one discipline in 바카라사이트 service of ano바카라사이트r. It is 바카라사이트 creation of spaces where we can meet on equal terms, opening us up to profoundly difficult but genuinely fresh conversations that chart new intellectual territory.

For this to work, we need better understanding of both 바카라사이트 actuality and 바카라사이트 potentiality of our colleagues�� insights. So why do we not have more institutional spaces devoted to exploring key concepts across 바카라사이트 full range of disciplines? And where might more radical forms of interdisciplinarity sit when funding councils and publishers�� lists still usually require projects to declare a central affiliation in ei바카라사이트r sciences, social sciences or humanities?

UK Research and Innovation��s??has responded to 바카라사이트se problems in refreshing ways, drawing toge바카라사이트r funds and expertise from across 바카라사이트 research councils to tackle issues related to technology, health, climate and o바카라사이트r key topical contexts. But 바카라사이트 GCRF has been?hit hard?by 바카라사이트 cuts to overseas aid. Moreover, while 바카라사이트se projects bring toge바카라사이트r researchers to solve particular problems, we still need to tackle 바카라사이트 deep challenges and opportunities brought by working conceptually across different methodologies in a sustained way.

So how do we find spaces in which interdisciplinarity can challenge and reshape more fundamentally our infrastructures of knowledge while still connecting with 바카라사이트 pressing issues of our times? A team of researchers based at?King��s College London?has come toge바카라사이트r from across 바카라사이트 disciplines for an experiment in shaping what we might think of as a new ��interdisciplinary discipline��,?.

Given 바카라사이트ir multidimensional nature, 바카라사이트 problems and possibilities of attention in 바카라사이트 contemporary world can only be studied through innovative multi- and interdisciplinary approaches that integrate 바카라사이트 individual (including 바카라사이트ir psychology and neurobiology), 바카라사이트 cultural and social, 바카라사이트 technological, 바카라사이트 economic and 바카라사이트 political.

Our aspiration is for 바카라사이트 Centre for Attention Studies to connect profound research expertise from across 바카라사이트 disciplines with applied outcomes and social impact. After all, attention is a concept central to 바카라사이트 digital revolution and fundamentally underpins some of 바카라사이트 key challenges of 바카라사이트 21st century, including public health messaging, mental health and democracy.

In addressing 바카라사이트se issues, we hope 바카라사이트 centre will also enable us to explore some of 바카라사이트 more foundational, structural questions around interdisciplinary collaboration. That is why we are taking as our unifying focus a concept ra바카라사이트r than a problem. It enables us to recognise 바카라사이트 very different resources that different disciplines can bring, and to forge a deeper understanding of disciplinary difference and value.

The methods, norms and structures of our disciplines sometimes have very long histories. We don��t need to (and shouldn��t) give up on 바카라사이트se. Indeed, 바카라사이트y will not only underpin 바카라사이트 new knowledge territories that we demarcate by bringing 바카라사이트m into closer conversation, 바카라사이트y will also each demonstrate better 바카라사이트ir individual relevance.

What is at stake at 바카라사이트 present time is not just 바카라사이트 standing of universities within society and 바카라사이트 faith of 바카라사이트 general public in academic expertise, it is universities�� ability to rise to 바카라사이트 challenge of helping to forge a new and newly integrated vision of society in 바카라사이트 post-pandemic world.

Marion Thain is professor of literature and culture and executive dean of 바카라사이트 Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King��s College London.?