Shared Socio-Emotional-Cognitive Platforms To Promote Interdisciplinary Synthesis

Available theories concerning interdisciplinary collaborations tend to focus heavily on either the cognitive, the social, or the institutional dimension of such interchange. We propose the theoretical construct of “shared socio-emotional-cognitive (SSEC) platforms” to capture what defines successful interdisciplinarity. The paper elaborates on this theoretical concept, which is informed by an extensive empirical study of nine research networks supported by three institutions: the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Sante Fe Institute. We also analyze the conditions that enable or impede individuals to conduct interdisciplinary research together successfully, focusing on intellectual, interactional and institutional conditions. We first review relevant literature on interdisciplinary collaborations, and then advance a definition of SSEC platforms, describing three key dimensions and the theoretical assumptions on which they stand. These dimensions are: the intellectual (most exclusively concerned with cognition); the emotional (concerned with reactions to individuals and ideas); and the interactional (concerned primarily with interaction, meaning-making, and group styles). These dimensions are also described as conditions enabling successful interdisciplinarity, along with institutional conditions for success, which concern the rules, practices and expectations of funding organizations and the academic fields. After showing that these dimensions and conditions are present in the nine groups studied, but in varying proportions, we conclude by comparing our construct with a well regarded models for understanding interdisciplinary exchange: the notion of “trading zones,” proposed by Peter Galison (1997) to specify our constructs’ usefulness and contribution to the field.