The Orthotic and Prosthetic Assistance Fund, OPAF, http://www.opfund.org,
offers the following information in cooperation with the Committee on
Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academies,
www.national-academies.org/cosepup, as a public service announcement, PSA,
that helps to fulfill OPAF’s official representation of the fields of
orthotics and prosthetics in community and philanthropic circles.
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In 2005, OPAF PSAs and overall operations are made possible thanks in part
to the generosity of OPAF’s top current supporters, including the American
Board for Certification in Orthotics and Prosthetics, ABC,
http://www.abcop.org/; Morrison & Foerster LLP http://www.mofo.com/; and
Ohio Willow Wood http://www.owwco.com/.
Thanks to all for their commitment to OPAF’s chief mission: enable
individuals with physical disabilities — especially those served by members
of the U.S. O&P community — to enjoy the rewards of personal achievement,
physical fitness, and social interaction.
Every PSA helps to build a bridge between OPAF, and therefore the O&P
community, and individuals and organizations concerned with the past,
present, and/or future of orthotics and prosthetics. Alongside OPAF’s other
service programs, OPAF PSAs help to advance the above-stated mission while
promoting, enhancing, and protecting the reputation of O&P in the public
eye.
Learn more about OPAF at http://www.opfund.org and see our thanks to all
OPAF supporters at:
http://www.opfund.org/thankyou2005.htm.
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Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
Mailing Address:
Keck Center of the National Academies
500 Fifth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
www.national-academies.org/cosepup
NEW REPORT OFFERS RECOMMENDATIONS TO SPUR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
WASHINGTON – Advances in science and engineering increasingly
require the collaboration of scholars from various fields. This shift is
driven by the urgent need to address complex problems that cut across
traditional disciplines, and the capacity of new technologies to both
transform existing disciplines and generate new ones. At the same time,
however, interdisciplinary research is impeded at many institutions by
policies on hiring, promotion, tenure, and resource allocation that favor
traditional disciplines, says a new report from the National Academies.
“This report identifies steps that individuals and institutions
can take to more effectively conduct, facilitate, and evaluate
interdisciplinary research programs and projects,” said Nancy Andreasen,
co-chair of the committee that wrote the report, Andrew H. Woods Chair of
Psychiatry, University of Iowa, Iowa City; Director, MIND Institute,
Albuquerque; and adjunct professor of psychiatry and neuroscience,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
The committee urged academic institutions to explore new models
that foster and reward interdisciplinary interactions. Industrial and
national laboratories have traditionally operated successful
interdisciplinary programs because their research goals are established and
pursued in terms of projects rather than by discipline. Teams of
researchers from various fields are formed to solve particular problems, an
approach that stimulates interdisciplinary interactions.
Academic institutions also should revise recruitment and hiring
practices to reach across departments, placing greater emphasis on people
with valuable interdisciplinary backgrounds; promotion criteria also should
include methods to evaluate interdisciplinary faculty and programs. The
committee concluded that the process by which institutions evaluate
interdisciplinary faculty and programs is often imperfect. The peer-review
process for both people and programs should include researchers with
interdisciplinary expertise, in addition to experts in single disciplines.
In addition, greater flexibility in resource allocation is often needed to
serve the needs of these programs.
The report’s recommendations are not targeted solely to academic
institutions. “Our objective is to stimulate interdisciplinary research, so
we offer suggestions for everyone who plays a key role in the research
process, including students, postdoctoral scholars, researchers, educators,
funding organizations, professional societies, and journal editors,” said
committee co-chair Theodore Brown, founding director emeritus, Beckman
Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign.
Funding organizations can enhance their evaluations of
interdisciplinary research programs and projects, the report adds. In
particular, the review process should include scientists and engineers with
interdisciplinary expertise, along with experts in discrete disciplines.
Journal editors, the committee said, should actively encourage the
publication of interdisciplinary research results through various mechanisms
— for example, by including researchers with interdisciplinary experience
on editorial boards, and by establishing special interdisciplinary issues or
sections.
Professional societies could serve as incubators for generating
and facilitating interdisciplinary programs and projects. These
organizations could produce intersociety reports on cutting-edge research
developments, offer opportunities for researchers from different fields to
interact, publish interdisciplinary journals, and recognize excellence in
interdisciplinary research, the committee said.
The report calls on undergraduate and graduate students and
postdoctoral scholars to actively seek out interdisciplinary experiences,
and to pursue training and study in one or more fields in addition to their
own. Junior researchers also should take advantage of networking
opportunities and identify mentors favorable to interdisciplinary research.
Faculty members who hire postdoctoral researchers from other fields should
assume responsibility for educating them in the new specialty and also take
the initiative to learn about the postdocs’ expertise.
The study was sponsored by the National Academies Keck Futures
Initiative, which was launched in 2003 to stimulate new modes of scientific
inquiry and break down the conceptual and institutional barriers to
interdisciplinary research. A committee roster follows. Additional
information on the study may be found at
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/interdisciplinary.
The National Academies comprise the National Academy of Sciences,
National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National
Research Council. They are private, nonprofit institutions that provide
science, technology, and health policy advice under a congressional charter.
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Copies of Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research will be available from the
National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the
Internet at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11153.html
