We use the term 'interdisciplinary research' quite often. The term 'interdisciplinarity' is often used interchangeably with such terms as multidisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and crossdisciplinarity. However, they are all different. We need to know the differences among them. Following is the summary of a Wikipedia article. You can find the whole text on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinary
1) Interdisciplinarity
· Made up of people from multiple disciplines and professions
· They create and apply new knowledge as they work together.
· They are equal stakeholders in addressing a common challenge.
2) Multidisciplinarity
· The act of joining together two of more disciplines without integration
· Example: A panel presentation on the many faces of the AIDS pandemic (medicine, politics, epideminology) in which each section is given as a stand-alone presentation.
3) Crossdisciplinarity
· The act of crossing disciplinary boundaries
· To explain one subject in the terms of another, foreign subject or method
· Common examples: 1) Studies of the physics of music, 2) The politics of literature.
4) Transdisciplinarity
· It doesn't have a stable, consensus meaning yet.
· Usage suggests that a transdisciplinary approach dissolves boundaries between disciplines. Most uses of the term suggest a deliberate and intentionally scandalous or transgressive violation of disciplinary rules, for the purpose of achieving new insight, or of expanding the discipline's resources.
· Made up of transdisciplinary professionals, which is an ideal that can only be approached and never achieved.
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