Knowledge integration across disciplines is at the heart of addressing
important research challenges, such as impacts of global change, trade-offs
between water, food, and energy production, and the need for sustainable
cities.The EMBeRS Project is testing a new Framework
for integrating knowledge across disciplines based on cognitive science
theories of model-based reasoning. The project is also creating educational materials
to train students to overcome the barriers to
integrating knowledge across disciplines.
Studies of interdisciplinary research teams indicate that team
members struggle to achieve knowledge integration across disciplines.
Issues arise due to the inability of team members to understand deep
knowledge at the frontier of other disciplines and to connect that
knowledge with their own expertise to catalyze a collaborative path
forward. The ability to work collaboratively in a research team with
others who may hold very different perspectives is a critical aspect of
preparing today's students to meet future workforce demands. Yet studies
indicate most environmental science programs are functionally
multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary (see definitions).
This work has been partially supported by the National Science Foundation awards DGE-1545404 and OCI-1835897. It was also supported by the National Socio-environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) under funding received from the National Science Foundation award #DBI-1052875.Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the investigator(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.