There is much discussion these days about the so-called “Team Science” which involves co-operation among multiple disciplines on Big Science topics. In some circles, this is also called a “convergent” approach wherein many disciplines come together to solve a major problem.  Whether we call it Team Science or Convergence, this involves working across disciplines which are sometimes known by other names (trans-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary). Team Science involve large projects that are global (e.g., climate science, biomedical sciences, health, the environment, energy, sustainability, etc.) which require multiple teams from different disciplines to co-operate.  However, most universities are ill-equipped to bring this to fruition since faculty are inherently comfortable working with those from one’s discipline. Let us investigate the potential reasons for this.

To begin with let us consider how Science as a discipline came into being during the Enlightenment period. During the early stages, when understanding nature was the only motive there were citizen scientists who did not call themselves the member of a specific discipline.  They were pure artisans who had to know everything and there were no boundaries to their investigations.  Some were brilliant artists who ventured to do investigations of natural phenomena, and they were not loath to asking others for help in deciphering ideas.  Thus came the flood of ideas from Galileo Galilee, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and many others. We can call them generalists and not specialists.  They were truly trans-disciplinary in their approach.  Wealthy individuals who dabbled in amateur science, and royalty who believed in helping their subjects through knowledge transfer supported these efforts and in some cases they were self-funded (individually wealthy).  However, as knowledge became the purview of not one or a few but belonged to everyone, there came the need to understand principles based on inductive or deductive approaches. These were promoted due to the need to categorize vast knowledge generated and distributed via printed media and place them in the appropriate context. However, during the early development of the scientific enterprise, there was clear recognition that one could move smoothly from one set to another based on the appropriate need to explain any phenomena.  As the eighteenth century approached, science became more and more precise and also more compartmentalized.  Generalists were being replaced by specialists. For two centuries since then, knowledge has been segregated into categories with less and fewer interactions between them. Universities came of age during this time reflecting this tendency; they were built on silos known as colleges or departments. Problems that were of importance during these times were mostly not of global scope, although they were basic and general. Fundamental questions did not require teams working together, but one or two generalists working independently.  Wars and ravages did not help.  Only in the mid-20th century (after reestablishment of peace) did global problems begin to be addressed.

Global problems that are now of relevance include environmental and climate science, public health and medicine, agriculture and food security, fundamental physics, and economic issues, all of which involve Big Data and Big Science. Not to be overlooked, other creative activities in the arts and humanities also are moving towards large groups collaborating on solving problems of societal nature.  Most of the research that done within the major research universities in the United States occur within a disciplinary boundary.  For example, let us consider the top 10 universities that presently receive 20% of the total government research funds. All of these universities are still fundamentally built on the premise that each discipline, courses and curricula are specialized; one can call this the “silo” effect. Within each of these disciplines, we have teams that are incredibly productive, but they lack the incentive or motive to look beyond their realm. That aspect of the research university culture is increasingly challenged as many of the problems require interactions and contributions from each of these specialized groups separately or in concert. Too many of our present day faculty find it difficult since the reward of tenure and promotion is still mostly dependent on their contributions to their discipline.  In other words, the existing system does not allow teams to explore outside their area.  Several issues have to be addressed within existing research universities to facilitate these interactions. Not only does this involve creating centers and institutes that are by their very design multidisciplinary, but involves changes in reward, promotion and tenure practices that will clearly catalyze unhindered participation by young investigators.  Both in natural sciences and engineering (40% in 2010) and social sciences (50%) there is increasing evidence of references to other disciplines. The number of papers with large teams (100s to 1000s of authors) has begun to appear since the last decade.  Government and industry funding increasingly flow towards large multidisciplinary grants and contracts.  Traditional research universities (even those in the top half) have to retool their approach to facilitate their researchers to participate in this “Team Science” endeavor. Controversial issues include the following:

• Change faculty hiring practices so that they are no longer based on disciplines but “focal areas” of need so they have no “home” departments,
• Hire based on research and not teaching needs,
• Review principles of authorship and attribution in multi-author articles,
• Emphasize trans-disciplinary research activities for young faculty including changing promotion and tenure criteria,
• Provide adequate support and mentoring to those with no particular “home” departments,
• Discuss salary structures to provide incentives based on research,
• Encourage building partnerships among the arts and humanities faculty for building creativity-focused programs that address societal issues and,
• Relax the intellectual property and commercialization protocols at institutions.

I present the above list to encourage further discussions on how a modern research university can handle both traditional single discipline-based research as well as trans-disciplinary research. For public Land Grant universities this is important both for the sake of societal impact and institutional relevance.  If not, large multidisciplinary research funds are going to be increasingly flowingly only towards the top research universities that can easily accommodate the change in sources of funding and the rest of the universities will remain just “bit” players in research since “basic” research funds are becoming increasingly hard to win.