In its 1998 session, the Minnesota Legislature made a major investment of $18,625,000 to strengthen the University of Minnesota's research, teaching, and outreach programs and to advance Minnesota's reputation in five interdisciplinary areas that are critically important to the economic development of the state:

• Agricultural Research and Outreach
• Design
• Digital Technology
• Molecular and Cellular Biology
• New Media

The initial appropriation has been leveraged with additional internal and external funding.
In 2004, the Office of Planning and Academic Affairs conducted a two-part review (2004 Summary Report for Review of 1998 Initiatives (PDF, 71kb) of each 1998 initiative, consisting of:

• a self-study prepared by an internal team of staff affiliated with the program
• a review by an external team of nationally-recognized experts in the field

Under the leadership of President Robert Bruininks, the University of Minnesota has invested in a series of system- and university-wide strategic initiatives intended to address complex social and intellectual problems that cannot be successfully advanced through the tools and methods of individual disciplines. These initiatives represent investments in the future by fueling conversations and seeding working relationships among faculty that cross the boundaries between colleges. In 2003, President Bruininks launched eight interdisciplinary initiatives representing areas of strength and comparative advantage for the University: Arts and Humanities; Brain Function Across the Lifespan; Biocatalysis; Children, Youth, and Families; Environment and Renewable Energy; Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives; Law and Values in Health, Environment, and the Life Sciences; and Translational Research in Human Health.

These areas have high-quality foundational programs, are central to the University’s land-grant mission and research enterprise, and reflect distinctive needs and resources of the State of Minnesota. They represent areas where further investment will yield significant return in intellectual quality and capital, where the University and the state possess a comparative advantage, and where considerable outside resources can be leveraged to build research capacity. University students at all levels reap the rewards of these initiatives as they learn in the midst of a dynamic interdisciplinary academic enterprise. A number of these interdisciplinary initiatives have matured into major University programs; Brain Function Across the Lifespan, for example, has become the Institute for Translational Neuroscience., which brings researchers from multiple disciplines together to connect an understanding of the brain with clinical applications in the areas of neuroengineering, memory research, neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, neurodevelopment and mental health, which are areas of strength for the university.

At the same time, the President’s 21st Century Interdisciplinary Conference Series was established to give faculty the opportunity to experiment with new interdisciplinary ideas and advance existing collaborations. In its first three years, the series supported more than 35 conferences that extended the possibilities for collaboration within the university, between the university and its partners in industry, and across institutional lines. The conference series is now administered by the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School in consultation with the Provost’s Interdisciplinary Team. Information about the series is available from the Office for Interdisciplinary Initiatives, Graduate School.

During the University’s 2004 strategic positioning process, multiple task forces identified fostering interdisciplinary activity as a critical institutional priority. As a result, the University has sharpened its focus on interdisciplinary initiatives system-wide. The University is building on its tradition of focused investment in interdisciplinary activity with a new round of major initiatives as well as new efforts to transform policies and practices that impede faculty and student mobility across the disciplines.

Priorities include:

• Substantial central investment, with support from the state, to address increasingly complex intellectual, scientific, and social problems
• Incentives for cross-college collaboration as part of the budget compact process that guides central investments in the colleges
• Support for selected, newly formed centers of interdisciplinary inquiry that foster collaboration, such as the Institute for Advanced Study, the Institute on the Environment, the Institute for Translational Neuroscience, University of Minnesota Interdiciplinary Informatics, and the Institute for the Advancement of Science and Engineering
• New investments to foster collaboration across research, training, and graduate education functions
• Changes in policies to ensure that interdisciplinary work is adequately valued in the tenure and promotion process, and changes in policies to allow for equitable distribution of indirect cost recovery for centers and institutes that foster collaborative activity
• Development of an advocacy network among faculty, students, staff and postdoctoral fellows engaged in interdisciplinary activity
• Support for developing the distinctive skills required to lead collaborative and interdisciplinary initiatives, particularly among faculty and graduate students

The future will require more ambitious goals and sophisticated strategies for identifying, supporting and sustaining the University’s interdisciplinary endeavors and a flexible infrastructure that can respond to emerging needs with agility.

In the most recent round of strategic planning, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Tom Sullivan recognized the need for central leadership to advance both the programmatic and policy dimensions of the institution’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinarity. Consistent with the value of collaboration, he created the Provost’s Interdisciplinary Team to coordinate efforts across the usual administrative boundaries. As members of the team, the Vice President for Research, the Dean of the Graduate School and Vice Provost, the Dean of Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost, Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, and the Assistant Vice Provost for Interdisciplinarity are responsible for developing a system-wide strategy for developing, nurturing, and assessing interdisciplinary activities.

University of Minnesota builds necessary infrastructure The University of Minnesota has expanded its capacity to foster interdisciplinary research and education by building the necessary infrastructure. Toward that end, the Vice President for Research has established an office for collaborative research services within his unit, and the Dean of the Graduate School created a new Office of Interdisciplinary Initiatives. Similarly, the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education will oversee the development of integrated research and education opportunities for undergraduates. These offices work collaboratively with each other and with Provosts Interdisciplinary Team to provide seed funding for interdisciplinary research and educational activities, offer a program of professional development in Collaborative Leadership, review interdisciplinary centers and institutes, analyze collegiate proposals for central funding to support interdisciplinary initiatives, initiate changes in institutional policy and practice, review tenure and promotion files for faculty pursuing interdisciplinary programs of research, teaching and creative work, and other activities related to fostering interdisciplinary activity at the University of Minnesota.

The University of Minnesota’s leadership role within the Consortium of ten public and private research universities dedicated to Fostering Interdisciplinary Inquiry represents a major investment in developing collaborative approaches to institutional problem-solving. Though most institutions have recognized the barriers to interdisciplinary work, a collaborative approach held promise in terms of expanding the repertoire of potential solutions to seemingly intractable issues, such as rewarding faculty who participate in interdisciplinary initiatives within the discipline-based tenure and promotion process. The self-studies that will be conducted by members of the Consortium provide a basis for understanding the current status of interdisciplinary activity at research universities and sharing policies and practices that have helped to foster a more welcoming climate for students and faculty whose work reaches beyond the boundaries of a single discipline. The hope is that the Consortium will provide both a base of information and peer network needed to support the difficult, but vital, work of institutional transformation.

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Last modified on June 27, 2007.