Open projects at Department of Science Education

• https://www.ind.ku.dk/english/about/
• https://researchprofiles.ku.dk/en/persons/katrine-ellemose-lindvig

The project will be based in the Higher Education Science Studies section and connected to the University Science Education Research group.  

• https://www.bric.ku.dk/research-groups/Research/lund_group/ 
• https://research.ku.dk/search/result/?pure=en%2Fpersons%2F275647

• What?
  • Scientific breakthroughs often occur at the interphase of different research fields. How can such interdisciplinary collaborations be facilitated and what are the challenges for the researchers involved?  Our research project seeks to investigate the potential of large-scale funding mechanisms in nurturing interdisciplinary doctoral education and advancing convergence science. Unlike the other projects within the Marie Curie co-funded INTERACT programme, our study examines the programme itself and its co-funded initiatives. Grounded in higher education research, our primary focus will be on understanding the complex and often implicit negotiations and practices emerging during the process of the programme. This includes how academic identities emerge and evolve within interdisciplinary contexts, exploring how researchers develop innovative interdisciplinary research practices, and analysing the institutional frameworks that support and enable boundary-crossing scholarship within the INTERACT programme.
• How?
  • The project will employ qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, which could include:
    • longitudinal ethnographic case studies of supervisors and PhD students in the INTERACT programme (including observations, interviews, workshops and document analyses)
    • comparative analyses of research processes and outputs from interdisciplinary PhD students working in the selected environments, both in- and outside the INTERACT programme.
    • Assessment and analysis of the linkages between Institutional policies and the local practices in the programme
    • Analyses of academic identity formation and scholarly practices in interdisciplinary projects (looking at both the students, the supervisors and co-supervisors)
• Why?
  • To understand the complex processes of interdisciplinary knowledge creation in order to develop more effective support structures for interdisciplinary research and generate insights into how academic identities and practices develop in interdisciplinary contexts.

• Key Research Opportunities:
  • Qualitative studies of supervisor-student interactions, comparative studies of convergence science produced in- and outside the INTERACT programme, methodological innovation in interdisciplinary research assessment as well as analyses of how institutional support systems, policies, and infrastructures enable or constrain the production of interdisciplinary PhD work. The PhD will become part of a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative environment, with researchers from various disciplines across the natural sciences, social science and humanities, interested in university science education, critical university studies and higher education research.

The interdisciplinary nature lies in combining diverse theoretical and methodological approaches to understand the complex dynamics of PhD research and knowledge creation across disciplinary landscapes. These new approaches could be employed in exploring interactions at micro-level (individual experiences), meso-level (programmatic structures) and macro-level (institutional dynamics).

The interdisciplinary aspects of this research could entail blending research methods across research fields and paradigms, including but not limited to university science education, education studies, media studies,  organizational psychology, sociology of knowledge, anthropology and interpretative policy analysis. It could also be in examining interactions between academic disciplines, institutional structures, individual research practices and scholarly identity development.