Hybrid Vigor

Whole Earth, Summer, 2001 by Denise Caruso

The final straw for those steeped in quantitative science: There are no metrics or accepted methodologies for doing or measuring the results of interdisciplinary work, or even much sense of what kinds of problems it works best on.

What, Then, Shall We Do?

How to get researchers to "be interdisciplinary" is a big, live-wire kind of problem with the potential for lots of unintended consequences. Building an organization that asks researchers to practice this--which in their minds, may mean risking their careers, even though it could yield a Holy Grail--was something we knew would require a methodical, considered approach.

We decided to use Hybrid Vigor to explore both the process and the content of interdisciplinary research. Our organizing principle would be a compelling common topic already under study by widely various disciplines.

We have focused our energies on three areas where we can best explore these topics: Earth systems, health determinants, and human perception--as well as interdisciplinary practice itself.

Earth systems, health determinants, and human perception are rife with problems to address. No single discipline commands the field in these areas, but great near-term progress is clearly possible, and researchers in these areas have a great many useful things to tell one another.

Interdisciplinary practice focuses on analyzing and evaluating how this type of research is best conducted, employed and assessed. We plan to design metrics for interdisciplinary work: ways to measure it, judge it, and improve it.

We're creating a new mode for organizing scientific research. It might be called a network-based Roman forum. It lets researchers interact in a novel way, at their own comfort level, outside of the university system, with Hybrid Vigor as their trusted agent.

The forum has four components:

* A quarterly journal. We're gearing up to publish four journals or monographs this year, via the Internet and the World Wide Web. Each issue will address a topic in one of our program areas. This will bring researchers from different disciplines in contact with each other's work. (Eventually we'll publish sixteen per year, four in each program area.)

Although targeted at researchers, each journal will be written for a general yet sophisticated audience, free of the disciplinary jargon that often immediately alienates a potential boundary-crosser. As one of our editorial advisors said, "All scientists are laypeople when they're outside their home discipline."

* Working conferences. Next year, or later this year if funding permits, the Institute will begin hosting an ongoing series of invitation-only working conferences. They will be organized around single, specific topics, for small groups of established researchers and graduate students from a range of disciplines.

* Hybridvigor.net. Traditionally, cross-disciplinary researchers face two very difficult tasks: finding fellow travelers outside their chosen disciplines, and gaining access to their work. Our membership network for researchers will unite them, equip them with new tools, and also compile a database of their relevant publications. The goal here is to automate serendipity.