With a focus on research in Multidisciplinary Research Centres, this project seeks to better understand:

• What exactly constitutes the expertise needed to work across disciplinary boundaries
• How researchers and university students learn to work across disciplines and develop this expertise
• How to better support the development of interdisciplinary expertise in research teams and university courses

We study interdisciplinary work and learning holistically at three interconnected levels:

• At macro sociocultural level we investigate how interdisciplinary cultures form and function
• At meso socio-material level we study how interdisciplinary teams co-create shared practices and environments for joint work
• At micro socio-cognitive level we research how individual team members develop the personal resourcefulness needed to contribute productively to interdisciplinary work

This project builds on our earlier work researching professional learning for knowledgeable action and innovation—the outcomes of which were summarised in the book “Epistemic Fluency and Professional Education”.

We also use innovative co-design methods to co-create, test and disseminate practical resources that capture successful practice.

This research has been funded by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project  “Developing interdisciplinary expertise in universities: Learning to co-create knowledge across disciplinary boundaries in laboratories and courses" (DP200100376), 2020-2024. This research is also part of Sydney Nano Catalyst projects.