The 'paradox of interdisciplinarity' in Australian research governance

Abstract

This paper identifies what can be called the 'paradox of interdisciplinarity' (Weingart 2000) in Australian higher education research governance and explores some of its constitutive dimensions. In the Australian context, the paradox of interdisciplinarity primarily concerns the proliferation of a programmatic discourse of interdisciplinarity in government reports and government policy and strategy documents, often tied to notions of innovation and applicability, parallel to the persistence or even reinforcement of modes of governance and associated mechanisms that almost exclusively rely on rigid discipline-based classification systems to evaluate and fund research. Two interrelated dimensi..