Strategies for synergies. Working in interdisciplinary teams

Abstract

This paper presents the approach and results of our workshop "Strategies for Synergies" hold at the 12 th EAD Conference. The main aim was to develop innovative ideas to establish interdisciplinary working in the education of designers and researchers. In this context, we wanted to elaborate which competences are necessary to work in interdisciplinary teams and how these competences could be integrated in design and research curricula. Our results show, that empathy, emotional intelligence, and communication skills, are identified as key capabilities for the success of interdisciplinary work. Educational formats, fostering those competences, are focused on practice-oriented experiential learning, to prepare students with first hand experiences.

Emotional processes, leadership, gender and workplace affect in interdisciplinary teams

“…These challenges are even more pronounced where membership boundaries and pluralistic goals of team members from different disciplines exist (Morgeson et al, 2010). Empathy, Emotional intelligence, and communication skills are identified as key skills for the success of interdisciplinary work (Glatte et al, 2017). Reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy efficiently reduces the experience of fear, which results in lower levels of emotion-related biases on rational decision-making (Heilman et al, 2010), which is critical in interdisciplinary teamwork.…”

Spaces of interdisciplinary in/congruity: the coming together of engineers and social scientists in planning for sustainable urban environments

“…Across a wide range of contexts, interdisciplinary research has come to be powerfully valorised and incentivised by research funders, institutions and state, governmental and non-governmental agencies. From researching food security to population pressures on towns and cities, climate change, global finance, migration and natural disasters (World Economic Forum 2019), thinking and acting beyond normative disciplinary boundaries is increasingly understood as a vital precondition for social, economic, cultural and environmental sustainability (Ledford 2015;Stutchbury et al 2015;Glatte et al 2017;Trussell et al 2017;Ganapati and Mostafavi 2018).…”