Not so long ago, one of us (PM) asked the question “What's in a name?” in calling attention of the discipline of nursing science to the burgeoning movement of interdisciplinary research.1 In just a few years, there have been a number of shifts in definition, even within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH placed interdisciplinary research and development of the interdisciplinary workforce at the core of the Roadmap Initiative. For example, NIH originally defined interdisciplinary as collaborative work on a common problem that maintained several disciplinary foci. More recently, this definition has changed to what others have called transdisciplinary—the emergence of a new discipline, framework and/or methods from the work of researchers who come from the parent disciplines.
Aboelela, Larson, Bakken, Carrasquillo, Formicola, Glied, Haas, and Gebbie2 have recently surveyed the interdisciplinary research literature and attempted to synthesize a definition of interdisciplinarity that would allow us to know it when we see it. They propose that: “Interdisciplinary research is any study or group of studies undertaken by scholars from two or more distinct scientific disciplines. The research is based upon a conceptual model that links or integrates theoretical frameworks from those disciplines, uses study design and methodology that is not limited to any one field, and requires the use of perspectives and skills of the involved disciplines throughout multiple phases of the research process.”2 They propose a continuum of interdisciplinarity that is consonant with Rosenfield's terms of multidisciplinary (several working in parallel around common problem), interdisciplinary (working jointly with sharing of frameworks and methods) and transdisciplinary (new language and new field). It is evident in their review of a large body of literature about interdisciplinary research that nursing is clearly evident among the authorship of these papers (nearly 17%), with several of the cited papers led by nurse scientists.
This issue of Nursing Outlook was born in the fervor of multiple calls for interdisciplinary research programs, centers, teams, career development and projects. We sought to create an issue that would provide a comprehensive view of: (1) how nurse scientists are leading, participating in, and shaping interdisciplinary research in the United States, (2) the perspective nursing science brings to these endeavors, and (3) raising the question of whether a new interdisciplinary discipline is arising from these efforts. To do so, we invited a number of scholars to contribute. Together, these 5 papers will contribute substantially to the dialogue around multiple facets of these issues.
Grey and Connolly, in “Coming Together, Keeping Together, Working Together: Transdisciplinary Research and Nursing, Past, Present, Future”, describe the historical underpinnings of interdisciplinary research in nursing and use that history to anticipate the future of these efforts and make suggestions for nurturing a transdisciplinary future.
McDaniel, Champion and Kroenke describe the opportunities and challenges for interdisciplinary research and research training in “A Transdisciplinary Training Program for Behavioral Oncology and Cancer Control Scientists.” They note that the development of a successful transdisciplinary training program requires mentorship, research, and a specialized curriculum.
Heitkemper and colleagues provide a historical and future perspective about the role of formalized Centers in Schools of Nursing in fostering and sustaining interdisciplinary research using their experience with the Center for Women's Health and Gender Research at the University of Washington.
Weaver tackles the obstacles and opportunities in team-building for interdisciplinary research, using her own transdisciplinary sleep research as an example. She emphasizes the importance of communication in the success of team development and maintenance.
Finally, Grey and Connolly review the roles, visibility and opportunities for nurse scientists in the newly developed Clinical & Translational Science Awards from NIH. They provide a number of suggestions for nursing schools to grow their involvement with these Centers.
In total, these articles point to the multiple contributions of nurse scientists in interdisciplinary research and the potential for transdisciplinarity. These articles make clear, however, that there is work to be done to assure that the next generation of nurse scientists is adequately prepared for this interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary future.
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