Interdisciplinary Research Careers: Overcoming Barriers 14 May 2024, 09:30-12:30

Interdisciplinary research is rapidly becoming the norm for researchers who seek to break the barriers of their disciplinary silos to find solutions to some of society’s trickiest problems. but mono-disciplinary institutional structures and cultures can create barriers for them. Identifying these challenges can be a great first step to successfully navigate interdisciplinary research careers.

In this online workshop, you will have the opportunity to:

• Define your interdisciplinary identity and career plans
• Explore potential barriers
• Consider solutions and strategies to overcoming these barriers through facilitated discussions.
• Discover some top tips and best practices from Dr Emily Woollen, giving you some tools and strategies to progress your interdisciplinary research career journey

Facilitator Biography

Emily Woollen is an Academic Developer: Researcher Development at the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) at the University of Edinburgh. She has a keen interest in supporting interdisciplinary researchers and early career researchers to pursue interdisciplinary research and careers successfully, which stems from her own experiences as a postdoctoral researcher working on large interdisciplinary projects. Since starting at the IAD in 2018 she has provided several workshops for researchers on the topic of overcoming barriers in interdisciplinary research, including a full day workshop for the XDF Fellow inductions in 2018 and 2019, shorter workshops for Universitas21 Early Career Research Fellows and Edinburgh Scientific Academic Track Fellows in 2022, and two workshops for the X-Net in 2023 looking to understand barriers for interdisciplinary research in biomedical research and industries. She runs an annual workshop for Edinburgh University staff on interdisciplinary collaborations, has written a guide for early career researchers to navigate the challenges of interdisciplinary research, and created the Interdisciplinary Conversations series to have open discussions with other researchers about everything interdisciplinary.

Date and format of workshop

Tuesday 14 May 2024, 09:30-12:30, ONLINE