Comment▼ Academic teamwork funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, are now encouraging academic researchers to form interdisciplinary teams, especially to address environmental problems that are felt to be too complex for individuals to handle. Very large grants are now being made to these teams, and it is at least useful to ask: Is this research leading to solutions? Is this the most effective way for academia to address complex problems efficiently? Universities are usually very interested in encouraging interdisciplinarity because the concept seems to fit nicely into the mission of a university and, besides, it promises to generate a lot of research dollars. The problem is that almost no university is willing to create the type of organization in which management is strong enough to achieve research objectives. By and large, environmental research at universities is not managed at all in R&D organizational terms. The individual investigator with a tightly held research group is still the overwhelming model of choice for academic researchers, and university administrators do not have the will to change it. When so-called interdisciplinary research centers are created at research universities, little work seems to be done to overcome the barriers and difficulties associated with interdisciplinary work, which are not a trivial matter. Many centers are merely voluntary consortia of individual researchers pursuing essentially the same research goals as before, drawn by the money and not the intellectual challenges of dealing with a complex problem. No doubt, some of these centers foster some teamwork with good results, but it seems that most prefer to reduce problems to the point that the search for a master equation for the larger system is lost. Is the individual investigator model really leading to creative approaches to handling large-scale environmental research problems? Many argue that it is and that the university is best able to contribute to sustainable development R&D (SDRD) through individual research groups, leaving government or industry to integrate the research results. This model seems to have worked pretty well in the past, especially in more focused research areas that were aided by loose bonds between industrial or governmental organizations and researchers, who serve as consultants or collaborators. Others point out that SDRD is different and that the individual research group model is not effective for ad-
dressing problems on a large interdisciplinary scale with a commitment to developing practical solutions. Developing a new, nonfossil energy and transportation regime; understanding the effects of diverse chemicals in the biosphere; valuing ecosystem services; or creating a global water and food production model that will use sustainable technologies—these and many other large problems require an interdisciplinary approach. If universities expect to handle such large projects, they must change how they conduct their business, or they will be relegated to the role of contractors working for more comprehensive, managed organizations that will take on these projects. If so, who are these organizations and what are their values? Often, the justification for managed teamwork in research in the United States is based on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, or other projects that led to advances in military hardware or software and decision-making tools. Since the 1940s, several research organizations have emerged worldwide, including national laboratories and institutes, R&D-based industries, not-for-profit organizations, and a few located at universities. But the climate in the years during and after World War II was different than it is today. Then there was a clear and deeply shared mission, a sense that individual prerogatives had to be sacrificed so that the team could achieve its shared goals. Is that an essential prerequisite for interdisciplinary, problem-oriented research? Does SDRD command that kind of loyalty to a shared vision? It is fine for us to gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, and other places to discuss sustainable development, but until the developed countries and their universities develop an effective plan to manage this process, including the badly needed R&D, I am afraid that we will make only halting progress toward the lofty goals of sustainable development, and universities will not be doing their part.
© 2002 American Chemical Society
OCTOBER 1, 2002 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
U.S.
William H. Glaze, Editor (
[email protected])
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