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Barriers and Solutions to Conducting Large International, Interdisciplinary Research Projects

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Abstract

Global environmental problems such as climate change are not bounded by national borders or scientific disciplines, and therefore require international, interdisciplinary teamwork to develop understandings of their causes and solutions. Interdisciplinary scientific work is difficult enough, but these challenges are often magnified when teams also work across national boundaries. The literature on the challenges of interdisciplinary research is extensive. However, research on international, interdisciplinary teams is nearly non-existent. Our objective is to fill this gap by reporting on results from a study of a large interdisciplinary, international National Science Foundation Partnerships for International Research and Education (NSF-PIRE) research project across the Americas. We administered a structured questionnaire to team members about challenges they faced while working together across disciplines and outside of their home countries in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Analysis of the responses indicated five major types of barriers to conducting interdisciplinary, international research: integration, language, fieldwork logistics, personnel and relationships, and time commitment. We discuss the causes and recommended solutions to the most common barriers. Our findings can help other interdisciplinary, international research teams anticipate challenges, and develop effective solutions to minimize the negative impacts of these barriers to their research.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation’s Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) Program IIA #1243444 and Research Coordination Network (RCN) Program CBET #1140152, SES-0823058, as well as the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN3105. We wish to thank all PIRE members who participated in this research and two anonymous reviewers for their comments that greatly improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan Technological University, Houghton, MI, USA

    Erin C. Pischke, Jessie L. Knowlton, Colin C. Phifer & Kathleen E. Halvorsen

  2. Wheaton College, 26 E. Main Street, Norton, MA, 02766, USA

    Jessie L. Knowlton

  3. University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    Jose Gutierrez Lopez

  4. Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Tamara S. Propato & Santiago R. Veron

  5. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, Instituto de Clima y Agua, Hurlingham, Argentina

    Tamara S. Propato & Santiago R. Veron

  6. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Tamara S. Propato & Santiago R. Veron

  7. Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mérida, Mexico

    Amarella Eastmond

  8. Conservation International, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Tatiana Martins de Souza

  9. Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brazil

    Tatiana Martins de Souza

  10. Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, Canada

    Mark Kuhlberg

  11. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, MI, USA

    Valentin Picasso Risso

  12. Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Valentin Picasso Risso & Marta Chiappe

  13. Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Morelia, Mexico

    Carlos Garcia

Authors
  1. Erin C. Pischke
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  2. Jessie L. Knowlton
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  3. Colin C. Phifer
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  4. Jose Gutierrez Lopez
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  5. Tamara S. Propato
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  6. Amarella Eastmond
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  7. Tatiana Martins de Souza
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  8. Mark Kuhlberg
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  9. Valentin Picasso Risso
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  10. Santiago R. Veron
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  11. Carlos Garcia
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  12. Marta Chiappe
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  13. Kathleen E. Halvorsen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erin C. Pischke.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Pischke, E.C., Knowlton, J.L., Phifer, C.C. et al. Barriers and Solutions to Conducting Large International, Interdisciplinary Research Projects. Environmental Management 60, 1011–1021 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0939-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0939-8

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