Interdisciplinary Research Journeys

'Interdisciplinarity' has become a rallying cry among funders and leaders of research. Yet, while the creative potential of interdisciplinary research is great, it poses many challenges. This book provides a practical guide to interdisciplinary research: to help build interdisciplinary skills and mobilise a new and growing research community.

This book provides useful insight into how academics from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, such as science, engineering, technology, social science, policy, design, architecture, built environment, business, and management, have been conducting research into how to realise net zero emissions to address climate change. This book explores the ways in which countries around the world have pledged to achieve net zero emissions through decarbonisation processes. It presents the highest calibre research and impact activities carried out in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Such activities include conceptualisation, opportunity identification, specific case studies, demonstration of proof of concepts, provision of evidence, education of the general public, and knowledge transfer to companies. Further to this, the chapters also bring to light personal career journeys to net zero by current and future international research leaders. From this book, readers will gain a full understanding of net zero research via multiple disciplinary pathways, be inspired by personal accounts, and will learn key methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative approaches. The diversity of authors and topics make the book widely applicable to a range of fields, and it will be of great interest to researchers, students, practitioners, and decision makers working towards the goals of net zero and decarbonisation.

Research Journeys in/to Multiple Ways of Knowing is an interdisciplinary collection of Indigenous research and scholarship that pushes boundaries of expectation and experience. While the topics are diverse, there are many points of affinity across the issues including themes of identity, advocacy, community, rights, respect, and resistance. The authors present counter-narratives that disrupt colonial authority towards multiple ways of knowing. Regardless of worldview or specialization, the chapters in this book have something to offer. Like the whorl of a spiral, the curve can be observed as traveling inward or outward. At different points in the conversations, the assertions may be congruent or disparate from the reader's perspective. The discussions may resonate on individual or societal levels. While tensions may arise, the push and pull of competing constructs demonstrates that the ideas are connected and held in relationship to one another--negotiating alterity is a space of reconciliation. Together the pieces contrast, blend, and broaden the landscape of Indigenous research and decolonizing discourse. "I hope you enjoy the critical and creative gifts here and witness and participate in the vibrancy, dynamism, and beauty of Indigenous scholarship." - Niigaan Sinclair, Associate Professor, Department of Native Studies, University of Manitoba, from the Foreword of Research Journeys in/to Multiple Ways of Knowing.

These thirty-eight essays by the professors and research fellows of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the School. The core theme of the essays is governance in Asia and what its governments and peoples are doing for the public good. As Asia rises, its policymakers and citizens, and indeed the rest of the world, are increasingly asking how this dynamic region is making public policy, what we can learn from that exciting, often turbulent process, and how Asians can do better. The School's diverse and international group of scholars have written a set of informal, provocative, and passionate essays about governance in Asia — its past, present, and future — and why they study it. The volume — a candid, engaging act of transparency and disclosure — is also an invitation to join the conversation on the problems and promise of Asia and the larger dialogue on public policy and policy research in a globalized world. Contents:In Search of Good Public Administration and Governance (Naomi AOKI)A Third Generation Theory of Collective Action (Eduardo ARARAL)Growing Importance and Increasing Complexity: Research in Public Financial Management in Asia (Mukul G ASHER)India on My Mind (Kanti BAJPAI)New Mindsets: Solving the World's Water and Wastewater Problems (Asit K BISWAS)How Did I Get Here? Where am I Going? Thinking on a Bicycle (Joost BUURMAN)Is There a Macroeconomic Policy Regime in China? (CHEN Kang)The Story of Missing Women (Yvonne J CHEN)Why Public Policy Needs to Take a Broader View on Well-Being (Namrata CHINDARKAR)From Slobodan Milosevic to Doraemon (HENG Yee Kuang)The Poetry of Politics: What I Research and Why (Selina HO)Tracing How Governments Think (Michael HOWLETT)The Challenge for Labour Market Policy Research (HUI Weng Tat)The Price of the Invaluable: The Role of Companies and Markets in Water Supply (Olivia JENSEN)From Gangnam Apartments to Urban Development Policy in Asia — A Personal Journey (JOO Yu Min)Research Passion for Excellence in Teaching (Suzaina KADIR)Population Ageing in the East and West (KIM Erin Hye-Won)Coincidences or Opportunities? (Ashish LALL)Water Narratives: Caricature of a General Theory of Institutional Change (LEONG Ching)Local Government Fiscal Disparities in China (LI Hui)New Ideas for a 'New Normal' Singapore (Donald LOW)Is Humanity Rational? (Kishore MAHBUBANI)First, Ask the Right Question (NG Kok Hoe)Of Mice and Man: A Personal Research Journey (Tikki PANG)Health for All, All for Health — Public Policy Research for Global Health (PHUA Kai Hong)Bureaucracy, I Love You (Ora-orn POOCHAROEN)Capital Flows, Crises, and Exchange Rate Management in Emerging Asia (Ramkishen S RAJAN)Destiny, Detachment, and Public Policy (M RAMESH)My "Research Passion" — Securing the Survival and Well-Being of Our Species (John RICHARDSON)The Big Picture and the Small, the Long View and the Short (Razeen SALLY)The Professorial Life: Seamlessness, Synergy, and Significance (Kenneth Paul TAN)The Need for a Serious Rethink on Economics (Dodo J THAMPAPILLAI)Any Progress Towards Sustainable Development or at Least Sustained Development? (Cecilia TORTAJADA)Making Research a Fulfilling Mission (VU Minh Khuong)What Drives Public Managers in Tough Governance Settings? (Zeger van der WAL)Dirty Boots and Polished Shoes (Robert J WASSON)Warming up the Cold Bench (WU Xun)Building an Asian Scholarship of Public Administration and Policy (Wai-Hang YEE) Readership: Academics, policy makers, LKY School students, alumni and faculty, and anyone interested in the development and management of universities and other institutions of higher education. Keywords:Public Policy;Education;University;Management;Leadership;Institution-Building;Lee Kuan Yew;Singapore;ResearchReviews: “In ten short years, the LKY School has achieved a certain international reputation. This is partly due to the inimitable leadership of Kishore Mahbubani and partly because the work of the School meets a crying need for better governance in Asia. The 38 essays in the book are snapshots of what the School has been doing from different perspectives, giving the reader a sense of where the School is heading as it rides a current of history.” George Yeo Chairman, Kerry Logistics Former Singapore Foreign Minister “This volume of essays by the faculty and research fellows of the LKY School is a series of succinct and candid reflections on public policy research — it is also an insightful guide to rising Asia.” Pascal Lamy Former Director General of the World Trade Organization “Kishore Mahbubani and his colleagues draw us into the exciting world of Asian governance and the making of public policy for development in this most dynamic region.” Helen Clark UNDP Administrator and Chair of the United Nations Development Group “Ever wonder what public policy schools do and why? Here is a place to find out. This volume is a biography of Asia's premier school and also an encounter with a burgeoning academic field. The Lee Kuan Yew School has accomplished so very much in an incredibly short period of time.” Merit E Janow Dean, School of International and Public Affairs Professor of Practice, International Economic Law & International Affairs Columbia University “Is there a Singapore 'school' of public policy thinking and research? These essays suggest that the LKY School may be laying the groundwork.” Justin Lin Professor, Peking University Former Chief Economist, the World Bank “The School shares its intellectual passions and ambitions with a directness and clarity which justifies the international attention it so well deserves.” Lim Siong Guan Group President, GIC

The aim of this book is to provide prospective and current doctoral students, and their supervisors, with a range of narratives of doctoral experiences. The book is an outcome of a conference where both academic and professional doctorate students at different stages of their research shared their experiences of the process of completing a doctorate. The ten candid accounts included in the volume provide a valuable insight into the kinds of challenges that arise and the ways in which these might (or might not) be overcome. In so doing, this book ‘lifts the lid’ on some of the hitherto concealed aspects of the doctoral process. The book also includes a chapter from an established academic with a record of writing about the doctoral student experience, as well as inserts from a doctoral programme leader and an experienced academic supervisor. In the Introduction, the editors review some of the current literature on experiences of the doctoral research journey and the research process. The book concludes with the editors’ reflections on both the unique nature of doctoral research for each individual and the common stages that students experience on the journey.

Unlike other volumes in the current literature, this book provides insight for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners on what doesn’t work. Documenting detailed case studies of project failure matters, not only as an illustration of experienced challenges but also as projects do not always follow step-by-step protocols of preconceived and theorised processes. Bookended by a framing introduction by the editors and a conclusion written by Julie Thompson Klein, each chapter ends with a reflexive section that synthesizes lessons learned and key take-away points for the reader. Drawing on a wide range of international case studies and with a strong environmental thread throughout, the book reveals a range of failure scenarios for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects, including: • Projects that did not get off the ground; • Projects that did not have the correct personnel for specified objectives; • Projects that did not reach their original objectives but met other objectives; • Projects that failed to anticipate important differences among collaborators. Illustrating causal links in real life projects, this volume will be of significant relevance to scholars and practitioners looking to overcome the challenges of conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research.

This groundbreaking, open access volume analyses and compares data practices across several fields through the analysis of specific cases of data journeys. It brings together leading scholars in the philosophy, history and social studies of science to achieve two goals: tracking the travel of data across different spaces, times and domains of research practice; and documenting how such journeys affect the use of data as evidence and the knowledge being produced. The volume captures the opportunities, challenges and concerns involved in making data move from the sites in which they are originally produced to sites where they can be integrated with other data, analysed and re-used for a variety of purposes. The in-depth study of data journeys provides the necessary ground to examine disciplinary, geographical and historical differences and similarities in data management, processing and interpretation, thus identifying the key conditions of possibility for the widespread data sharing associated with Big and Open Data. The chapters are ordered in sections that broadly correspond to different stages of the journeys of data, from their generation to the legitimisation of their use for specific purposes. Additionally, the preface to the volume provides a variety of alternative “roadmaps” aimed to serve the different interests and entry points of readers; and the introduction provides a substantive overview of what data journeys can teach about the methods and epistemology of research.