Interdisciplinary collaboration (Crucible theme)

The Crucible network routinely conducts its research through interdisciplinary collaboration. However, in addition to working this way, network members are committed to reflective practice, in which we explicitly observe and analyse the processes of interdisciplinary collaboration. This has included commissioning social science research as a reflexive component of specific projects, and also establishing new collaborations in an explicitly experimental manner, in order to create conditions in which interesting new forms of collaboration can be studied.

Specific projects in this theme include:

• Social Property and New Social Forms
• Interdisciplinarity and Innovation
• New Technology Arts Fellowships
• Across Design

An applied outcome of this theme has been the development of re-usable facilitation methods for interdisciplinary collaboration:

• Blackwell-Leach Method
• Comparative expert practice

Publications:

Blackwell, A.F. and Good, D.A. (2008). Languages of innovation. In H. Crawford (Ed.), Artistic Bedfellows: Histories, theories and conversations in collaborative art practices. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, pp.127-138. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~afb21/publications/Blackwell_Languages_of_Innovation_preprint.pdf

Blackwell, A.F., Wilson, L., Street, A., Boulton, C. and Knell, J. (2009). Radical innovation: crossing knowledge boundaries with interdisciplinary teams. University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Technical Report UCAM-CL-TR-760. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-760.html

Blackwell, A., Wilson, L., Boulton, C. and Knell, J. (2010). Creating value across boundaries: Maximising the return from interdisciplinary innovation. NESTA Research Report CVAB/48, May 2010. http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/creating_value_across_boundaries_may10.pdf