Interdisciplinary organization as a basic academic unit?

Abstract

Academic interdisciplinarity has become a powerful means of addressing challenges facing contemporary society as well as offering opportunities to advance knowledge. To better understand the role of university interdisciplinary organizations (IDOs), the authors studied 18 IDOs at Stanford University in the USA. They propose that IDOs not only enhance researchers’ interdisciplinary collaboration but, counterintuitively, also serve departmental and disciplinary interests. While IDOs are traditionally believed to threaten traditional disciplinary departments, the authors find a “more the more” dynamic in which, by bringing shared university resources and faculty to bear on new themes, significant new resources are generated to the benefit of both actors. Traditionally, the relationship between departments and IDOs has been seen as a zero-sum game with winners and losers. This research suggests, to the contrary, a win–win dynamic in which the two formats are mediated by the research group. Some faculty members are alternately departmental chairs and IDO organizers as well as start-up founders, industrial consultants and holders of high governmental advisory positions during their careers, integrating Triple Helix university–industry–government interactions with IDOs and IDOs with departments. The authors examine how these two entities coexist and benefit one another in a cooperative academic ecosystem and consider the implications for the future of the university.

Keywords

Academic departmental impact interdisciplinarity interdisciplinary organization societal impact of universities university IDOs

Introduction and research problem

Acute, complex crises facing humanity, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic¹ and the Great Depression of the 1930s, call for cross-disciplinary academic research teams to join forces with actors from government, industry and civil society to devise solutions (Etzkowitz, 2015). It often takes more than a single researcher or a single discipline to adequately address a research issue or practical problem, and so interdisciplinarity becomes a crucial element in a strategic response. Interdisciplinarity, put simply, implies “bringing together in some fashion distinctive components of two or more disciplines” (Nissani, 1995: 122). Interdisciplinarity and disciplinary specialization, although contradistinct, are seen as “parallel and mutually reinforcing strategies scientists deploy to seize opportunities of acquiring knowledge and resources for the purpose of innovation” (Tsai-hsuan Ku, 2012: 3). The university has remained one of the primary sites of knowledge development as it has accommodated interdisciplinary projects and expanded its remit to encompass not only new formats of generating knowledge but also new models of putting it to use (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000: 109–123).

The co-existence of, and the tensions between, specialization and interdisciplinarity in organizing scientific research at universities, however, remains an under-researched phenomenon (Baptista et al., 2019). As Cummings and Kiesler (2014: 1) note, “[…] although stars will always be important in science […] in the last few decades, science increasingly has become an effort performed by organizations.” Indeed, there is no necessary contradiction between the two formats. In the physical universe, a star may be surrounded by orbiting objects subject to its gravitational pull. Similarly, in science a star researcher is typically at the center of a network of collaborations as well as a supporting organization. As a response to the shift toward increasingly more interdependent and collaborative forms of organizing scientific research, organizations and institutions such as universities are transformed accordingly. Those changes not only imply inter-organizational collaborations such as scientific consortia and open innovation practices (Chesbrough and Brunswicker, 2014; Perkmann and Walsh, 2007), but also demand intra-organizational, structural changes. An example of such a change that applies particularly to universities is an evolution and institutionalization of interdisciplinary initiatives and the emergence of interdisciplinary organizations (IDOs) as newly established or somewhat evolved university units (Baptista et al., 2019). Those IDOs are called, for example, interdisciplinary centers (e.g. the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University of Maryland) or interdisciplinary institutions (e.g. the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment). We use “IDO” as an umbrella term in this paper to refer to intra-university interdisciplinary units, which are distinct from traditional (specialized) university departments.

The pathway for individual IDOs may differ significantly, given the history of interdisciplinary initiatives in the context of the specific university and regional and national settings (Baptista et al., 2019). In this study, we take a closer look at IDOs formed at Stanford University, one of the global leaders in higher education. Generally, an IDO may emerge in response to external concerns (an extra-driven IDO)—for example, the Stanford Center of Integrated Systems established in 1978 to tackle the exponential growth of semiconductor technology, with industry and government collaboration, in response to Japanese competition (Stanford, 2020). Alternatively, an IDO may be established in response to internal, faculty-driven initiatives, especially if supported by the university’s leadership (an intra-driven IDO).

In practice, an interdisciplinary center is often at the confluence of both types of motivation, combining new academic directions with practical concerns in a seamless web—as in the case of the Stanford D.School, established by Professor David Kelly, CEO of IDEO, and his team in 2005 (Steinbeck, 2011). However, what is common to all university-based IDOs is that these interdisciplinary units have to co-exist with the more established and already institutionalized university departments. That implies sharing, if not competing for (Bozeman and Boardman, 2003), intra-organizational and external resources (Freeman et al., 2019; Perkmann et al., 2019), a certain degree of co-dependency and a need to constantly balance the interdisciplinarity–specialization tension (Baptista et al., 2019; Tsai-hsuan Ku, 2012). How do these units manage to do so?

A complementary research question in the Stanford case concerns the relative absence of the traditionally expected tension in the form of a “more the more” dynamic that produces increasing returns. The relative lack of departmental resistance to the rise of IDOs at Stanford may be explained by the contribution they make to the departments in supporting PhD student research and disciplinary research groups. This remains an underexplored challenge that needs to be understood from both organizational and institutional perspectives (Freeman et al., 2019; Perkmann et al., 2019). Accordingly, the research questions, addressed in this paper are:

How does interdisciplinarity evolve in the contemporary university: what forms does it take, what roles does it play and how does it co-exist with the traditional university structure, particularly with departments that represent a traditional, discipline-based divide or, in the Stanford case, a non-traditional integration?

Research background: Interdisciplinarity at universities

Interdisciplinarity at universities has an evolutionary pathway and takes different forms (Baptista et al., 2019). Among the most common theories applied to explore and understand this phenomenon are Institutional Theory and Organizational Theory (Freeman et al., 2019; Geiger, 1990; Perkmann et al., 2019). We first explain the origins of interdisciplinarity to picture why these two theories in particular have so far been found the most relevant to research, explain and understand interdisciplinary organizations at universities. We next review the evolution of a specialization–interdisciplinarity divide through the prism of Institutional Theory and analyze the forms of university interdisciplinary through the lens of Organizational Theory.

The origins of university interdisciplinarity

What are the origins of the interdisciplinarity phenomenon and, thus, the source of its legitimacy (Sá, 2008)? Ever since the 19th century devolution of natural philosophy into disciplines, whose numbers subsequently increased through further differentiation, loss of the unity of knowledge has been regretted (Ben-David and Randall, 1966: 451–465). By the early 20th century, attempts were made to regain integration by seeking to derive the root elements of disciplines (Abir-Am, 1987: 1–70). Physicists’ efforts to understand the atomic nucleus resulted in the invention of complex apparatus like the cyclotron, requiring chemical and engineering expertise for its development as well as biological expertise to deploy it for medical uses (Hiltzik, 2016). So, the interdisciplinary efforts demonstrated more and more results and obtained legitimacy (commonly studied by Institutional Theorists (Jong, 2008)), which has led to the emergence of the various interdisciplinary initiatives or “organized research units” (an Organizational Theory term) at universities across the globe (Freeman et al., 2019; Geiger, 1990).

An “organized research unit” involves a mixture of “both disciplinary and interdisciplinary structures that can respond to social demands for relevant knowledge and provide access to a larger pool of resources” (Freeman et al., 2019: 2; Geiger, 1990). Earlier examples of such units, which work at the nexus of interdisciplinarity and departments, include initiatives at the University of Chicago in the 1930s (Olby, 1994). The term “organized research unit” was introduced after the Second World War at the University of California (Geiger, 1990). In the post-war period, industrial scientists and their allies in government seeking to restore links between engineering disciplines and firms provided an impetus with funds behind it to restore those connections through the establishment of Engineering Research Centers (Mayfield, 1987: 130–132). Moreover, as an outcome of wartime research projects located at universities like MIT, the basic research elements of these projects persisted as interdisciplinary centers at such schools as MIT and Columbia (Etzkowitz and Kemelgor, 1998: 271–288). Thus, the wartime governmental initiatives pursued after the war was over contributed to the process of the institutionalization of IDOs.

Klein (1990, 1996) and Graff (2015) provide masterful syntheses of the various forms of interdisciplinarity, including its broad range of conceptualization (multi-, trans- and cross-disciplinarity) and international practices, instantiated in a wide variety of institutions from small liberal arts colleges to international organizations such as the OECD. These studies bring together diverse theories on both institutionalization and the organization of interdisciplinarity.

In the early 1990s Michael Gibbons and his colleagues, proposed that traditional academic disciplinary knowledge generation (mode 1) would be complemented, if not superseded, by interdisciplinary knowledge creation, increasingly carried out beyond university borders in entities such as consulting firms (mode 2) and responding more directly to society’s interests than traditional academic formats (Gibbons et al., 1994). Gibbons and his colleagues expected mode 2 to primarily find a home outside of the university and mode 1 to persist as the primary academic mode. We suggest, to the contrary, that the contemporary university is especially well suited to generating and integrating collaborative organizational forms that transcend traditional university boundaries. We will show how Stanford University exemplifies a combination of modes 1 and 2 in new organizational formats over the decades. Moreover, rather than being temporary organizational formats, these IDOs show signs of persistence, morphing into revised formats and roles.

Nevertheless, the balance between the two modes has become a contested arena in academic policy analysis. Ziman (1996: 67–80) noted the conflict between disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge but expected the persistence of disciplinary knowledge, with its validation mechanisms of peer review, as the basic format. On the other hand, societal issues beyond the ability of any single discipline have driven the creation of an array of cross-departmental entities which call this assumption into question or at least balance it with an alternative proposition. From the Rockefeller Foundation in the early 20th century and continuing through the rise of government funding in the mid-20th century, “problem solving” has proved a more durable attractor of funding than disciplinary advance, which in turn has further contributed to the legitimization of academic interdisciplinary initiatives.

Interdisciplinarity and specialization at universities: An institutional theory perspective

The specific issue addressed in this paper is: how do the two modes, specialization (departments) and interdisciplinary (IDOs) co-exist? Recent studies relying on Institutional Theory follow the “institutional logics” (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999) approach in explaining this phenomenon (Freeman et al., 2019; Upton and Warshaw, 2017). Institutional logics implies the “socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organise time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality” (Thornton and Ocasio, 1999: 804). Recent studies on universities argue that, in response to the call for social and market engagement, universities are increasingly becoming industry-like organizations (Upton and Warshaw, 2017). In following this path, universities combine hybrid institutional logics: “academic capitalism has not replaced the public good knowledge regime. The two coexist, intersect, and overlap” (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004: 29).

Furthermore, institutional logics are seen to be combined both within the university as a whole (public good knowledge and academic capitalism regimes) (Slaughter and Rhoades, 2004; Upton and Warshaw, 2017) and within separate organizational units as interdisciplinary organizations (Perkmann et al., 2019). The Institutional Theorists distinguish between these two solutions, which organizations deploy internally when externally engaging with multiple institutional logics. The first is “blended hybrids,” in which conflicting logics are combined throughout the organization, also called “hybrid organizations” (Greenwood et al., 2011). The other is “structural hybrids,” in which different logics dominate in different compartments within the organization (Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz and Block, 2013). Perkmann et al. (2019) in their study of university–industry research centers argues that “structural hybrids” remain particularly unexplored. Following the most recent works on the topic (Freeman et al., 2019; Perkmann et al., 2019; Upton and Warshaw, 2017), this study aims to further explore the ways in which interdisciplinary organizations, as structural hybrids, incorporate both the logic of disciplinarity and academic entrepreneurship within a common framework. The next section looks at the roles of university interdisciplinarity through the prism of Organizational Theory.

Forms and roles of interdisciplinarity at university: Organizational Theory perspective

The integration of different disciplines, or interdisciplinarity, emerged and became a commonly recognized global academic trend (Baptista et al., 2019). The rise of interdisciplinary organizations (IDOs), building bridges among organizations and objectives inside and outside a university, enhances the commitment of the research university to catalyze economic and social development, well beyond its traditional mission (Baptista et al., 2019; Perkmann et al., 2019). An IDO stands for “an open, free, non-threatening and informal arena for communication between participants” and offers university researchers “alternative environments and opportunities not available within traditional departments—greater autonomy” (Peters and Etzkowitz, 1988: 168; Russell et al., 1982).

In Organizational Theory terms, the interdisciplinary organization is a structurally distinct organizational space which is a response to institutional complexity or the duality of institutional logics (Greenwood et al., 2011; Perkmann et al., 2019). Therefore, in addition to combining two or more disciplines in their agenda, the distinctive feature of IDOs is that they are structurally separated from departments (Perkmann et al., 2019), often (although not necessarily) having their own dedicated buildings or building sections² (Friedman and Worden, 2016).

Contrary to the rapidly increasing significance attached by universities and society to interdisciplinarity, the organizational development of interdisciplinarity lags behind. For example, Columbia University has been supportive of interdisciplinary education and research but, like many other universities, it has limited accessible records of the administrative structures used to facilitate such work (Baptista et al., 2019; Humensky et al., 2020). The contrast between the increased importance of interdisciplinary research and the lagging development of interdisciplinary institutions encourages exploratory studies in this field (Perkmann et al., 2019).

Prior studies have established an agenda of organizations managing paradoxical tensions as the specialization–interdisciplinary divide at universities (Andriopoulos and Lewis, 2009; Jay, 2013). Furthermore, scholars use such paradoxes to analyze organizational transformations and develop Organizational Theory (Poole and van de Ven, 1989; Quinn and Cameron, 1998). Our understanding of structural hybrids and the mechanisms to manage them, though, remains very limited (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013), especially when we consider the university as the particular instance of an organization (Perkmann et al., 2019).

Seeing university interdisciplinary centers as structural organizational units, some may perceive that IDOs can threaten departments by taking away their ability to retain the loyalty of their faculty, and by assuming responsibilities that currently belong to departments, such as setting faculty salary, teaching courses and offering degrees (Bozeman and Boardman, 2003; Perkmann et al., 2019). If IDOs are to succeed, they must find an equilibrium with the departmental structures, so that everyone believes that the university as a whole gains from the existence of IDOs coupled to departments.

Concerning the uneven and inadequate development of IDOs among universities, we identify three major hindrances to IDO establishment. First, the academic reward system is strained. Normally, hiring, tenure and promotion are controlled by departments, and faculty often receive credit only for the teaching and research actually performed in their department (Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy et al., 2004). Second, there is resource allocation. Some may worry about IDOs diluting disciplinary strengths, and departments may also be reluctant to contribute to activities not seen as directly beneficial (Rhoten and Parker, 2004: 2046). Third, the strong attraction of interdisciplinary research fields to students may detract from interest in traditional departments. As a result, the tense relationship between the IDO and related departments becomes a potential obstacle to IDO establishment and growth (Flexner, 1994).

At the same time, it is recognized that the emergence of an IDO is a combination of a response to societal needs and internal academic impetuses (Metzger and Zare, 1999: 642–643; Service, 1999: 226–227). An IDO in that respect seems to play a dual role. It is, first, a response to the call for the university’s “third” mission of impactful research (Shore and McLauchlan, 2012: 267–286). However, it might also be a defensive mechanism—to secure the department’s ability to perform its tasks without endangering the traditional role of a “university” as an “institution of learning” (Flexner, 1994; Perkmann et al., 2019). As Flexner (1994: 5) holds, “universities must at times give society, not what society wants, but what it needs.” IDOs, nevertheless, become a membrane, filtering interaction between the university and society and introducing flexibility, encouraging intellectual convergence and facilitating lateral links within and without the university.

How do IDOs do that? Only a few studies to date have helped to advance our understanding here (Baptista et al., 2019; Perkmann et al., 2019). In particular, Perkmann et al. (2019), studying the tension between two conflicting institutional logics (research versus academic capitalism) in the context of university–industry research centers, identifies three major organizational mechanisms to address the logics hybridization within a separate structural unit: first, leveraging the dominant logic (academic research) for the benefit of the minority logic (academic capitalism); second, hybridizing the dominant logic through adjusting its practices; and third, bolstering the dominant logic within the hybrid space and its staff as well as beyond the space. These results demonstrate how the conflicting logics could be hybridized within a structural space but they do not address the interdisciplinarity–specialization paradox, to the study of which this paper contributes.

Importantly, addressing the above challenges may ultimately foster greater efficiency in the design and development of IDOs. Yet, only a few studies have investigated the trend from an Organizational Theory perspective (Biancani et al., 2018: 543–557). We focus on Stanford University, which hosts the greatest number (18) of IDOs among the 10 top-ranked research universities in the USA. The 18 IDOs, going back as far as 70 years, are classified into four research fields: human health and biomedicine, energy/environment, physics/astronomy and social sciences/humanities.

Methodology

This study is exploratory in its nature as we are looking at a still emerging and evolving phenomenon of universities’ interdisciplinary organization. A case study strategy is applied as it supports the exploratory goals of the study and allows the contextual settings of the phenomenon to be grasped (Yin, 2003). With this study we tackle the “how” research question; that is why we need to take a close, in-depth look into the case to find answers and advance existing understanding.

In selecting Stanford as a focal case study we followed a combination of extreme and critical case sampling logics (Patton, 1990). Stanford represents an extreme case as one of the global academic and education leaders, possessing a unique combination of resources (e.g. access to the Silicon Valley network and its global outreach). That, in turn, makes this case a critical one as its uniqueness inevitably puts Stanford among the global trendsetters or benchmarks for higher education developers and policy makers (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Statistics on IDOs among 10 of the top-ranked research universities in USA.^a,b

	Columbia	Cornell	Harvard	MIT	Penn State	Princeton	Stanford	UC Berkeley	Michigan	Yale
IDOs	—	—	—	6	13	14	18	—	4	—
Faculty joint appointment in IDO	—	—	—	—	—	Yes	Yes	—	Yes	—
Degree granting in IDO	—	—	—	—	Dual-title PhD/A Major field required	Joint granting	No	—	Yes	—

Note: ^a2020 Best National Universities by US News Rankings, plus UC Berkeley and Univ. Michigan, arranged in alphabetical order. ^bIDO: Considering the establishment of independent interdisciplinary institutions requires university-level support, and reaching a consensus in the community. We assume that data from those university’s official websites reflect the standing of their resolution and practices. Data in this table count only those clearly listed as interdisciplinary units in the university’s research or academic website content.

We used a combination of techniques: first, desk and archival research to picture the overall state of interdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary structures at Stanford; to this end, the Stanford website, the webpages of its interdisciplinary centers, related newsletters, university strategy and announcements available online were analyzed. That allowed us to understand the level of legitimacy of IDOs at Stanford, the way they were supported both top-down and bottom-up and to ascertain the scale at which the IDOs had been growing. Second, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the directors and/or research associates at several interdisciplinary centers—see Table 2 for details of the data collected. The participants were selected on the basis of their leading positions at the IDOs. We assumed that they, as leaders, would have a comprehensive understanding of the IDO’s functions and performance, how it interacted with the departments, the internal university environment and external parties. All the interviewees were able to share their perspective on these matters, to give examples and to share any additional materials that might further inform our research. The interviews lasted between 40 and 100 minutes, were recorded and transcribed verbatim. We also studied the IDOs’ annual reports (when available), their brochures, and their announcements of events and initiatives. Furthermore, one of the authors undertook a 3-month research visit to the ChEM-H center, which allowed us to apply participant observation and collect field notes (one interview with the director of ChEM-H, one interview with the former chair of the chemistry department, two interviews with administrative staff, four meetings with group members in three research directions, one discussion with a postdoctoral fellow).

Table 2.

18 IDOs at Stanford University and data collected.

Field	Abbreviation	Year	Description of goals	Data collected^a
Health & Biomedical	Bio-X	1998	Create new knowledge of biological system for the benefit of human health.	P: Interview with Associate Director P: Interview with PI in IDO P: Email consulting with staff in administration office. S: Annual reports, media coverage & websites of IDO
	Longevity	2007	Foster innovation and accelerate social and cultural change with regard to longevity issues.	S: Annual reports, broadcast & websites of IDO
	ChEM-H	2013	Understand life at the molecular level to address long-range challenges in human health.	P: Participant observation S: Brochure, media & websites
	Wu Tsai Neuro.	2013	Understand the human brain to provide novel treatments and promote brain health throughout the lifespan.	P: Interview with Director for Planning and Operations S: Brochure & websites of IDO
	Spectrum	2013	“Final mile” of implementation science at patient and population levels.	S: Brochure & websites of IDO
Energy & Environmental	Woods	2004	To advance solutions to the most critical, complex environmental and sustainability challenges.	P: 2 Interviews with Senior Associate Director S: Annual reports & websites of IDO
	Precourt	2006	Concentrates on energy research and education, from basic science and technology to policy and business.	P: Interview with Research Associate (Behavior and Energy) S: Annual reports & websites of IDO
	SIMES	2007	Address grand challenges in the science of energy-related materials.	S: Brochure & websites of IDO
Physics & Astronomy	HEPL	1947	The W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory began as the High Energy Physics Laboratory, expanded to biomedical physics and electro-neural interfaces.	S: Websites of IDO S: News about HEPL
	Ginzton	1961	Quantum science and engineering, photonic science and engineering, and nanoscience and engineering.	S: Websites of IDO
	PULSE	2005	Advance frontiers of ultrafast science.	S: Websites of IDO
	GLAM	1999	Interdisciplinary education and research on advanced materials in science and engineering.	P: Interview with senior fellow (materials science) S: websites of IDO
	KIPAC	2003	Explore new frontiers and challenges in astrophysics and cosmology.	S: Annual reports & websites of IDO
Economics, Policy, Humanities	CASBS	1952	Study contemporary societal problems and contribute to evidence-based policy and solutions.	S: Newsletters, brochure & websites of IDO
	Humanities	1981	Through study of history, philosophy, the arts, religion and more, to look back and press forward.	S: Annual reports & websites of IDO
	SIEPER	1982	Evidence-based knowledge about pressing economic issues, leading to better-informed policy solutions.	S: Annual reports & media coverage & websites of IDO
	CSLI	1983	Amplify Stanford’s already considerable strengths in cognitive sciences.	S: Websites of IDO
	FSI	1987	Address critical global issues, teach and train tomorrow’s leaders, and engage policymakers.	S: Brochure & websites of IDO
Total				P: 11 interviews of 520 minutesS: 3 months of data collection and summary

Note: ^a“P” implies primary data, while “S” implies secondary data; Bio-X: Stanford Bio-X; Longevity: Stanford Center on Longevity; ChEM-H: Chemistry, Engineering & Medicine for Human Health; Wu Tsai Neuro.: Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute; Spectrum: Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Research; Woods: Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment; Precourt: Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy; SIMES: Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences; HEPL: Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory; Ginzton: The Ginzton Laboratory; PULSE: The PULSE Institute; GLAM: The Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials; KIPAC: Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology; CASBS: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; Humanities: Stanford Humanities Center; SIEPER: Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research; CSLI: Center for the Study of Language and Information; FSI: Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The data were analyzed using manual coding and categorization. We used both the primary and secondary sources to understand the commonalities between the Stanford centers. Following Pratt et al. (2006) we derived initial first-order codes, grouped them into bigger themes and then aggregated them into higher theoretical dimensions which shaped the resulting framework (see the Appendix for an overview of the data structure). We discussed and debated the interim results to assure researcher triangulation (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Once the resulting 4R framework had been developed, a member-check (Krefting, 1991: 214–222) was applied—we asked several of our research participants to reflect on the framework and validate it. Their comments were taken into account when finalizing the framework.

What are the characteristics of an IDO?

Summarizing our results, we first share the formal characteristics of a contemporary university IDO based on the case of Stanford University. Relying mostly on the secondary data analyzed, but also on the interview data, the following three features were found to be common among Stanford’s IDOs.

1. Problem-oriented

Intellectually supported by at least three departments, each IDO originates from a significant and comprehensive research field, which at the same time could include multiple IDOs to target different challenging problems (see the four different field sections in Table 2).

Their interdisciplinary orientation requires the IDOs to bring together researchers from different departments and unite them around solving complex problems. The Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute representative explained:

They [are] tackling problems in neuroscience, from their own disciplines. But they are engaged; they want to talk with the biologists, some of them work on human subjects or chemistry, different things…They’re bringing all of that in and the important [piece] is that they are collaborative. They have the benefit of being within a department. So, they have that content that, domain knowledge and that kind of camaraderie. [Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute hires], we call them our faculty scholars. So, being a scholar of the Institute really helps them [to]…engage in a broader way with lots of different people that they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.

This comment corresponds well with the functions performed by IDOs as discussed in the following section. When explaining the long-term goals of the IDO as an organization, our interviewee from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute said:

[When] I think long-term goals…it’d be a major breakthrough on one big neuroscience health related or mental health related problem that actually changes people’s lives. If there’s some discovery that comes out of our teams or our facility that improves the outcomes for people with terrible, devastating neurological or psychiatric diseases or improves quality of life for people with dementia through rejuvenating the brain, or helping people with learning disorders. [If we get] one of those things, I think we [will have] succeeded. It’s all about impact.

Those quotations illustrate how the Stanford IDOs work on a daily basis, bringing scientists from diverse disciplines together for potential solutions to large and complex problems.

2. Outreach

IDOs display significant outreach capabilities and benefit from high visibility. In human health and biomedicine the outreach concentrates on industry, while IDOs in the social sciences, humanities and energy/environment interact more with government and the public.

Working on outreach, though, is not a challenge-free task given the need to balance outreach to external parties with outreach to internal parties, including faculty. The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment respondent explained:

I would say messaging is one of the biggest things we have. Like I mentioned before we had a school that named itself after two institutes that were already there. So now we have to unravel that and be clear on how we work together and how we’re separate. So, messaging is a big piece right now. It’s not just to the outside world and the donors, it’s to our internal colleagues because if they’re not going to go out into the field and [don’t] even want to talk about our areas because it’s so confusing then we’ve definitely lost that pipeline. So, that’s the challenge….

Blending the disciplines, therefore, is only a part of the challenge for the IDOs; they also need to interflow the messaging and make it clear for external parties, society at large and the internal scientific community (with scientists from diverse disciplines).

3. Sustainability

IDOs are usually established with the financial support of the university or donors, while increasing the diversity of operating income sources is a necessary condition for sustainable development. From the oldest, HEPL (1947), to the youngest, ChEM-H (2013) and W. T. Neuro (2013), the IDOs leverage diverse resources to support themselves. According to the financial report of the Humanities Center, from 2006 to 2018 the overall expenditure of the Center increased by 10 times, while the proportion of university funds decreased by 2.71 times. Also, we observe that some IDOs use seed funds to support major research projects and attract various resources through the transformation of the results from those projects, thus achieving large returns from a small investment. The Bio-X representative explained:

During 2000–2019, the first seven rounds of seed grant in Bio-X resulted in over $270 million in external funding awarded to the university. This tenfold return on investment has supported hundreds of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, resulted in hundreds of publications and dozens of patents filed, and accelerated the pace of scientific discovery and innovation.

The characteristics of each specific IDO are summarized in Table 3. Given all the above, the IDOs appear to be running rather efficiently in batches, contrary to the expectations of competition for resources with the related departments and a weakening of departments’ positions.

Table 3.

Summary of IDO characteristics.

IDO	Problem orientation: linked disciplines/departments	External outreach: type of major organization being reached	Sustainability: programs & funds
Bio-X	Biomed./Clin./Eng./Phys./Comput.	Industry	1. Seed Grants2. Neuro Venture
Longevity	Soc. Sci./Eng.	Industry/Government/Public	1. Longevity Design Challenge2. Corporate Affiliates Program
ChEM-H	Chem./Bio./Eng./Medicine	Industry	1. Seed Grants2. AIM
Wu Tsai Neuro.	Neurosci./Medicine/Eng./Psychol./Educ./Law	Industry	1. Big Ideas2. Seed Grants3. Neuroscience: Translate4. Accelerator
Spectrum	Clin./Medicine/Stat./Bus./Eng.	Industry	1. Innovation Accelerator Pilot Program2. Spectrum Pilot Grants
Woods	Environ./Eng./Law/Medicine/Bus./Policy	Industry/Government//Public	1. Environmental Venture Projects2. Realizing Environmental Innovation Program
Precourt	Energ./Environ./Eng./Law/Policy/Bus.	Industry/Government//Public	1. Seed Research Programs2. Stanford Energy Corporate Affiliates
SIMES	Energ./Mater./Eng./Biol./Environ./Chem./Geol.	Industry/Government	The Bay Area Photovoltaics Consortium
HEPL	Electr. Eng./Appl. Phys./Mech. Eng./Biomed.	Government//Public	By the Office of Naval Research & University
Ginzton	Sens./Inform./Proc./Eng./Biol./Medicine/Energ./Environ.	Government/Industry	Membership & Sponsorship Opportunities
PULSE	Phys./Chem.	Government	Foundation and Federal Agencies
GLAM	Appl. Phys./Chem./Eng.	Industry/Government	Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fellowships
KIPAC	Phys./Astron.	Government//Public/Industry	Foundation and Federal Agencies
CASBS	Anthropol./Econ./Polic. Sci./Psychol./Educ./Linguist./Biol.	Industry/Government	Center Fellowships
Humanities	Hist./Philos./Arts/Religion	Public	1. Geballe and Mellon Fellowships2. Graduate Fellowship3. Foundations
SIEPER	Econ./Law/Bus./Medicine/Educ./Polit. Sci.	Industry/Government	Faculty and Visitor Initiative
CSLI	Psychol./Linguist./Philos./Comput. Sci./Commun./Educ.	Industry/Public	1.The Open Proof Project2.Summer Internship Program
FSI	Polit. Sci./Medicine/Eng.	Industry/Government	1. Leadership Program2. Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program

What are the roles of an IDO? The 4R framework

A comprehensive understanding of the role of IDOs can help a university and its departments to establish a shared vision. Based on our analysis, we propose a 4R framework, depicting IDOs’ fourfold multiplier effect as shown in Figure 1. We discuss each part of the framework in detail below.

Figure 1.

IDO bridges, amplifying the university’s and department’s impact.

1. 1st R—exchange harboR

IDOs increase the visibility of academic research with potential social impact (see the Appendix for the illustrative quotations and subthemes). The Woods Center, for example, has an office in Washington, DC to deliver new findings from the latest environmental research to the policy community, as well as to policy makers, including government, non-profit institutions, think-tanks and other organizations. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) and other centers have established wide-ranging partnerships or sub-institutions in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, making it easier for innovative ideas to collide and expand their global horizons.

When validating our framework, one of the specific reflections we received was:

…we harbor because we have physical spaces…to harbor, on a mental [level]…[we have a] community building in a place too…Although harbor seems like a safe haven…You don’t need to have this kind of [a] peaceful, safe [space]…I feel like we…want to put them together and send a storm into the harbor…because we want to do something more than just maintain the status quo…something different should happen. (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Director for Planning and Operations)

This harbor metaphor thus conveys the combination of peace and safety in the environment created, with a continuous traffic of different actors and forces attracted to and floating into the harbor.

2. 2nd R—IncubatoR

An IDO is a multifunctional academic incubator, cultivating next generation leaders by providing both academic and business mentors from different disciplines to guide students (see Appendix for the initial codes and subthemes). It also breeds interdisciplinary organizations. Bio-X, founded in 1998, has assisted the replication of similar institutions in other universities over the past 20 years, and has nurtured two new IDOs locally: CHEM-H (2013) and W.T. Neuro (2013).

Incubation in an IDO context is therefore not only about incubating start-ups, as is commonly accepted in the entrepreneurship field; an IDO also incubates professionals, communities and technologies before the commercial value becomes evident:

We are currently incubating a new technology in the Human Brain Organogenesis lab…There’s a space in the building…to kind [of] share that technology with people at Stanford and around the world…to get that technology out to the world. (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Director for Planning and Operations)

3. 3rd R—AcceleratoR

IDOs assist the innovation pipeline. For example, Spectrum offers candidates the opportunity to set up a team with the guidance of business leaders and engineering professors. The bio-design project admits applicants with backgrounds in medicine, engineering and business to work collaboratively to address unmet medical needs through the development of new devices (Etzkowitz et al., 2018). Since 2001, its fellows and students have started 50 health technology companies from their fellowship/class projects, impacting more than 1.5 million patients worldwide. The degree of acceleration function was found to be present across the IDOs, but varied not only across the IDOs (see Appendix) but also even within an IDO, with different programs, initiatives and individuals demonstrating different degrees of involvement in acceleration. As noted by the Woods Institute representative:

There’s a social problem solving accelerator where some of that would fit and some of that would fit within these other initiatives as well. Some are really defined and some are just getting their feet wet….

This flexibility in approaching the acceleration function allows for the acceleration of ideas at different maturity stages—some increase their speed by being licensed through Stanford programs at IDOs (as Biodesign at Spectrum, or Precourt—see Appendix) with support from the Office of Technology Licensing; others get accelerated as early-stage ideas or initiatives through the platform—spaces and events launched by the IDOs.

4. 4th R—Society educatoR

IDOs assist individual researchers from diverse disciplines to form long-term and extensive networks. For example, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) links its participants with the top experts in the multiple fields of space research and physics. The Center on Longevity, in addition to providing a large number of public education videos, uses podcasts to disseminate research-based knowledge and to interact with public. Also, the Humanities Center is “a strong base for sharing humanistic knowledge and research globally to engage the wider public” (Moler, 2019). However, according to one of our interviewees, to create such a strong scientific culture of openness, continuous training is needed:

Training our next generation of neuroscientists is really important. We actually started with big ideas and a postdoctoral fellowship program. So, they are shining stars and they’re the next generation of neuroscientist, and we’re training these, these folks to be interdisciplinary. They eat, breathe and sleep it, they wouldn’t imagine not talking to collaborators when they’re conceiving a project or reaching out to somebody to see if they can give input on things. I think that this aspect of being open to collaboration is something that’s been baked into the culture at Stanford…, but it happens really easily…[It would be] weird [here] if you go hole yourself up…in a corner. So, giving that flavor, expectation or that kind of training and that kind of openness to our trainees is really important…Just be successful and do great things.

Culture, values, attitude toward excellence and the continuous training of an interdisciplinary mindset (in addition to the well-known entrepreneurial one) thus become integral components, although partly a responsibility or function of a contemporary university IDO.

How could the IDOs co-evolve with departments?

IDO construction and operation is not easy, and there have been examples of the devolution, repurposing and renewal of IDOs.

One case of such a transformation is the Food Research Institute (FRI) at Stanford University, which was established in 1921 as a research and teaching department in the School of Humanities and Sciences. In 1996 the University’s administration decided to close the Institute. According to Walter Falcon (2008), an economist and long-time director of both FRI and what would become the Freeman Spogli Institute, many of the FRI professors were nearing retirement and there was general pressure at the University to streamline the number of academic units in economics. Apparently, the aging of personnel was accompanied by the aging and marginalization of research direction, and the Institute’s agricultural economics research appeared to have been superseded by economic globalization in 1990s. These conditions were not conducive to attracting external resource input, nor to providing a good platform for carrying out interdisciplinary research. A few years later, Falcon and former University President Donald Kennedy put together what would become the Center for Environmental Science and Policy (CESP), out of which the program in Food Security and the Environment (FSE) later emerged.

Another case is the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL), founded in 1963 by Professor John McCarthy, one of the founding fathers of the field of AI. In 1980, SAIL’s activities were merged into the Computer Science Department, but SAIL was reopened in 2004. Professor Christopher Manning, Director of SAIL, attributed this demise and rebirth process to the development and transformation of the AI discipline itself in 50 years from “academic laboratories” to “changing people’s everyday lives” in the SAIL literature (Manning, 2019). This process also reflects that AI has become the mainstream trend of computer science development.

As an academic institution in a university parallel to the department, the relationship between the IDO and existing departments plays a key role in IDO establishment and development. A successful IDO can define its function clearly, and develop in sync with the departments; otherwise it is likely to be merged into a department or converted into a cross-research and educational program. The above two cases allow us to observe some of the necessary conditions for the sustainable development of an IDO, especially the characteristics of the differentiated development of departments and IDOs from a disciplinary perspective (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Discrepancies between departments and IDOs from a disciplinary perspective.

Among traditional departments, there is usually a family of sub-disciplines, including several secondary and tertiary fields. For example, a chemistry department normally includes the family of organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry and physical chemistry, etc. Disciplines in an IDO have greater diversity and relatively distant disciplinary associations. Thus an IDO needs to be structured on the basis that it will face more challenging and pressing major issues, with the essential need for multidisciplinary joint participation, rather than allowing a single discipline to maintain a dominant position. Also, high strategic priority and a relevant policy system are prerequisites for the establishment of an IDO. Choosing an academic leader with global influence to lead the IDO, building efficient governance mechanisms and managing policies are all crucial factors.

Discussion

University interdisciplinary organizations/centers are complementary but orthogonal to departments. IDOs decentralize solid structures by introducing new spaces and resources (Baptista et al., 2019), thus formulating a multidirectional network, inducing permeability and blending institutional logics in academic boundaries (Perkmann et al., 2019) and even beyond. Based on Stanford’s successful experience, we observe that efficient vertical management mechanisms play an important role in coordinating various resources and relationships. At the university level, all IDOs are directly led by the provost in charge of scientific research and directly managed by the Office of Scientific Research Management, which ensures the stable support of the allocation of funds by the university and the convenience of IDO cooperation with other departments and colleges of the university. At the IDO level, dedicated managers ensure the Center’s harmonious coexistence with other departments through the establishment of many systems and approaches, like sharing funding/patent rights with the main department, or developing supportive collaborative relationships with other parts of the university. In order to depict a panoramic view of the coexistence of IDOs and departments, we focus our discussion on the two major kinds of power—faculty appointment and graduate degree granting—which were thought to aggravate the tension between departments and IDOs.

Three approaches to organizing interdisciplinarity at a university are observed by our study. First, there is the “No Touching” approach—seen at most of the IDOs in Stanford University. IDOs insulate themselves from both kinds of power in departments, and offer only extra benefit and support to a department, as well as directly or indirectly contributing to the dissemination of departmental research results at their events and in their communications. This approach mostly “bolsters” the dominant logic as per Perkmann et al. (2019)—the “dominant” logic in case of our study is departmental or disciplinary logic—while an IDO relies on the community and collaboration spirit to aid interdisciplinarity. However, what appears “dominant” from one perspective may be seen as subsidiary from another, and vice versa. Thus the successful IDO mirrors what both its disciplinary-oriented and its interdisciplinary-oriented participants wish to see in it. Often, these are the same people.

Second, there is the “Half-Half” approach, whereby an IDO keeps only a certain number of jointly appointed faculty, accompanied by many more affiliated faculty working to various degrees on a part-time basis and visiting researchers to make up the balance. We found this approach to be not very prevalent at Stanford, but nevertheless present. For instance, the Operations Director at the Wu Tsai Nuerosciences Institute explained:

We have been able to do some salary support for them [the departments]…we’ve kind of designed it so that eventually there’ll be 24 neuroscientists here. They are not in the departmental space. So that frees up other places on campus, so we’ll have 10 new hires, and then the other 14 were existing [faculty], so they’re moving into this space. They have the opportunity to be part of this community, to actually draw their collaborators into the building, and it frees up space in the in their departments…meaning that they have a chance to hire a new faculty.

The Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) shares this approach, but in education. While offering diverse formats for students’ dissertation research, including certificated programs, field study experience and travel granting, PRISM does not directly admit graduate students but offers joint PhD degree programs with participating academic department.³ This approach represents a mix of the two mechanisms derived by Perkmann et al. (2019) in their study of hybrid organizations, balancing academic and entrepreneurship logics in university centers; particularly, “leveraging” and “bolstering the dominant logic.”

Third, there is the “All In” approach, which affords autonomy and power to the IDO comparable to those of a university department. We have not seen that (yet) at Stanford but, as an example, besides faculty joint appointments the Life Science Institute at the University of Michigan (an IDO) grants PhD and MS degrees in Chemical Biology independently as well.⁴

In recent decades, the above three approaches have converged, and can be seen as alternative strategies to boost cooperation between IDOs and related departments. Due to the distinctive nature of the university culture, social needs, budget situation, disciplinary characteristics, departmental value, numbers of affiliated departments, different universities may adopt different strategies to develop IDOs, even within the same region (as found by Baptista et al., 2019). As our study shows, different IDOs in the same university can also adopt different approaches to find the best-fit relationship with departments. The common feature of successful IDOs is that they focus on and promote cutting-edge research and training, avoid power struggles and achieve a shared development vision with departments. Only when consensus-based approaches and a cooperative relationship have been firmly established, can IDOs and departments together become the cornerstone of building an ecosystem of collaborative innovation in research universities.

The University of Chicago, an early proponent of interdisciplinarity, has taken a different path, according departmental status, including degree granting and hiring authority, to interdisciplinary fields like social thought and biophysics.⁵ These interdisciplinary departments provide a base for scholars who might never fit into disciplinary definitions; yet, as departments, they tend to silo interdisciplinarity. Stanford’s IDOs, on the other hand, are complementary to but orthogonal to the departments, decentralizing solid structures by introducing new spaces and resources, and thus formulating a cubic network and inducing permeability in academic boundaries.

Conclusions and challenges ahead

IDOs are becoming an integral part of a university’s vision and long-term strategy (Etzkowitz, 2013: 605–627)—whether they advance the “third mission” or protect the traditional university departments from becoming part of a “public service institution” (Flexner, 1994). A pressing challenge in developing IDOs is to insure that the academic evaluation system gives more attention to interdisciplinarity in funding application and peer review (Bromham et al., 2016: 684; Stirling, 2014; Tett, 2015). At the organizational level, cooperation and conflict between IDOs and departments may present various contradictions. But such contradictions drive development. To ensure a positive development, maintaining the scientific understanding of these contradictions, regulating the benign interaction, and cultivating an harmonious atmosphere between IDOs and departments is necessary for the mutual development of these two academic cornerstone organizations. Thus the university’s impact on social problem solving and the education of future generations can achieve continuous amplification—paradoxically, without endangering the institution of the traditional university (Mode 1 disciplinary) even as it is transformed into the Mode 2 interdisciplinarity of an entrepreneurial university. The link between the two formats is the succession of research groups, led by faculty deeply involved in both modes simultaneously (Segatto and Etzkowitz, 2020).

Here we propose the keys to IDO growth achieved through an harmonious and a mutually supportive relationship between the IDO and related departments:

The research group remains the fundamental organizational entity, collaborating freely across traditional boundaries supported by the new overlay of IDOs. Individual researchers involved in both departmental work and work at the IDO do not need to draw clear boundaries in their work and the time they spend on each.

The IDO fulfills its mission without disturbing departmental attributes, such as authority over faculty appointments. Indeed, an IDO administrator we interviewed mentioned that the center deliberately left the organizational 1/3 share of patent revenues to departments in order to maintain good relations.

The IDO’s financial independence, rich resources, dedicated premises and shared facilities leverage academic resources, allowing relatively small departments a competitive advantage over larger discipline-bound peers.

Taking root in challenging research areas, problem-oriented, and with wide-ranging outreach and abundant resources, the IDO creates new knowledge and technologies, which in turn bring an enhanced reputation and more high-quality resources, continuously supporting the university’s and department’s development.

Our study is limited to a single, US-based research university, which has historically been open to interdisciplinarity. Research in other contexts would definitely enrich our understanding of interdisciplinary organizations at universities and related policy-making. Nevertheless, we may conclude that the research group as the basic organizational unit of contemporary academic science persists as the fundamental component of departments and centers, linking and integrating these two academic organizational formats. It is also noteworthy that the growth of a firm-like organizational format, the research center, makes the university more homologous with long-term large corporate organizational practices (House and Price, 2009).

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

The authors thank their collaborators Professor Richard N. Zare, Professor Chiqui Ramirez and Professor Chunyan Zhou for their contributions to their research and thinking. They also thank Heideh K. Fattaey for data sharing, and Professor Zhongqun Tian and Professor Weihong Tan for helpful opinions on this project.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by The China Scholarship Council (201808350130); it was also supported by the Scandinavian Consortium of Organizational Research (SCANCOR) and the Fulbright Finland Foundation, International Triple Helix Institute, Palo Alto, CA, USA.

ORCID iD

Liu Yang

Notes

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