Abstract:

Organizations strive for better results by focusing on collaboration across the organizational structures and borders. However, for many large organizations working in silos inside the organization is yet a common challenge. This is true especially in scientific universities and universities of applied sciences, where different disciplines are clearly separated.

According to Klein and Newell (1997) interdisciplinary studies answer questions that are “too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline or professions”. Without interdisciplinarity, these problems are not dealt with at all. In addition, there is a risk that different disciplines are studying the same problem from very different angles, and none of them is able to see the whole picture. Already 1972 OECD pointed out the importance of interdisciplinary studies and also the challenges to achieve them. It seems that even today neither the needs, nor the challenges have not been removed (OECD 2019).

As the world around the universities is in constant change and needs for interdisciplinary changes according to cases and situations (OECD 1972), the fixed interdisciplinary sub organizations was not seen as an optimal solution here. Contrarily, fixed new sub organizations form easily their own silos, and produce more bureaucracy and administration causing extra overheads. Situation being like this, we formulated the following research question: How to organize interdisciplinary research collaboration across university department borders without a new fixed organizational structure?

Self-managing organizations (Martela 2019) were a baseline for development. The creation of the new matching space called Research Accelerator started with inviting a diverse group of experts to a co-creation workshop that aimed for generating a research culture. The purpose was to collect data through collaboration and to provide a bottom-up approach for the experts. This gave them an opportunity to impact on new interdisciplinary study practices. The participants (n=28) of the workshop designed alternatives of the ideal research cultures. As an outcome we got five alternatives, which were then analyzed by the 6 volunteer experts. The group used content analysis and coding to identify the most common themes from the data. The group concluded their analysis by identifying five values and forming a goal as well as a sentence that describes the research culture.

After defining the research culture, we organized another matching workshop virtually to test how the concept works during COVID-19. There we used virtual platforms for data collection and facilitated discussion with speed-dating and lean-coffee methods. The data produced by participants (n=13) was analyzed together and a consensus of Research Accelerator future formats was made at the end of the workshop.

As a result of the workshops, the Research Accelerator was defined as an open space where meetings without agendas happen. The values guiding the work are inspiration, sharing, change of thoughts, co-writing & flexibility. Furthermore, a virtual platform for discussions was created and two formats for meetings without agendas was agreed: a matching or a thematic event.

To conclude, the Research Accelerator is not a fixed organizational structure, but rather a voluntary function that inspires experts to collaborate. Since attendance is voluntary and experts eager to join, it shows that the concept is perceived as useful.

Keywords:

Interdisciplinary, research, collaboration, university, organizational development.