Getting Interdisciplinary Work Published

Inter-Multi-Supra-Cross: grappling with definitions

I’ve talked about the difficulty of interdiscipinarity before (for instance here, here and here; no yawning at the back), but on Tuesday I was at a British Academy funded workshop for early career researchers (ECRs) which wrestled again with the subject. And you know what? There were signs of hope.

I want to focus in particular on the potential for interdisciplinary publishing, and especially the work of Sarah Campbell and Rowman and Littlefield International. Sarah is Editorial Director of this new, small scale academic publisher. She’s done her time in academic publishing, and worked at Continuum for a decade before starting RLI. Whilst it’s linked to a big sister in America, it is editorially independent, and being so has allowed her the freedom to start from scratch and think about how interdisciplinary research can best be served.

Supporting the Cinderellas of Science

Vitae: Healthy and delicious

Last week I went to the Vitae Conference in Manchester. Many of you have probably not heard of Vitae. It sounds like some kind of healthy sunflower-based butter substitute advertised by people wearing white and laughing as they eat toast and give each other piggybacks. But actually Vitae fulfils an increasingly important function in modern higher education. It offers succour to those cinderellas of science, fixed term researchers.

FTU Monopoly

As you can imagine we were very excited to learn about the special edition of Monopoly that the University of Kent is producing as part of its fiftieth anniversary celebrations.

We here at Fundermental Towers University (FTU) are celebrating our own landmark. Can it really be 26 and a half months since we were established?

We feel it is only right and fitting that we follow Kent's lead and have our own branded Monopoly set. In addition to spreading the word about our excellent work, an FTU Monopoly set would have two clear advantages:

The Dangers of Blogging

Last month, I gave a talk to a group of research administrators at my university. My focus was the use of social media, and the potential for it to raise our research profile, increase citations and engage the public. The talk was well received, but the discussion afterwards highlighted a clear nervousness in the room.