
Being Interdisciplinary, Adventures in urban science and beyond
Being Interdisciplinary by Alan Wilson presents a systems approach to interdisciplinarity for researchers in various fields. The author argues that most research is interdisciplinary and that a systems perspective fosters creativity and allows researchers to think beyond conventions. The book establishes the basics of interdisciplinarity, provides general principles and a framework for building an interdisciplinary toolkit, and tackles questions of managing and organizing research from individual to institutional scales. While the author's illustrations are from the field of urban science, the principles apply to other research fields as well.


Table of Contents:
Preface
Prologue: A Research Autobiography
Part I: Interdisciplinary Research: A systems Approach
1. Interdisciplinary research
2. Being interdisciplinary
Part II: Doing Interdisciplinary Research
3. How to start
4. Establishing a research base-1: system models
5. Establishing a research base-2: data
6. Doing the research: different kinds of problem solving
Part III: Tricks of the trade
7. Adding to the toolkit: explorations
8. Adding to the toolkit-2: more on superconcepts
Part IV: Managing and Organising Research
9. Managing research, managing ourselves
10. Organising research
Bibliography