Interdisciplinarity projects are just like cupcakes. Read an impressive analogy of conducting research from the Senior Editors of Cambridge Prisms: Plastics.

We are in the midst of a biodiversity, climate, and pollution crisis for which solutions are urgently needed. As the drivers of this crisis span all aspects of society, science and technology, a shift in the evidence base used to find solutions is required. We need to move beyond traditional mono-disciplinary paths if we are to achieve the scale and urgency of change needed.  Yet how we define these new approaches is fraught with difficulty. As researchers, we are increasingly asked to work in transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cross-cutting, cross-disciplinary or cross-curricular ways. These terms are often used synonymously and without much reference to their origins, meaning or the methodological or philosophical differences they imply. Despite these challenges, the adoption of research approaches that examine global challenges more holistically is critical.

Cambridge Prisms: Plastics will explore the urgent and major societal challenges posed by the global plastics crisis and the possible solutions and policies needed to confront it. The plastics crisis is complex and interconnected. Understanding it, and contributing to resolving it, requires a well-choreographed dance between science, policy, society and industry. In this journal, we intend to showcase interdisciplinary research that explores the array of topics that underpin the nexus between plastics, human and environmental health, environmental justice, and human rights. But what is it we mean by interdisciplinary? Let’s keep it simple at first. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “interdisciplinary” as “involving two or more academic, scientific, or artistic disciplines”. Though clear enough, it does not say anything about the working methods of these disciplines. In fact, it actually sounds a lot like “multi-disciplinary”, which the same dictionary defines as “combining or involving more than one discipline or field of study”. It even refers back to “interdisciplinary” as a synonym. And what of transdisciplinary, which in the same dictionary, also refers back to interdisciplinarity? 

At this point, it might be helpful to share a description of interdisciplinarity provided by Dorothy Dankel. At a conference podium, she held up a cupcake, with delicious icing, chocolate sauce and a cherry on top. She asked the audience to think about each part of the cupcake as researchers, each contributing equally to an interdisciplinary project.

The sponge represents natural scientists, the icing is the economists, the chocolate sauce is the social scientists, and the cherry is the community or the practitioners who use the research. She then holds up the cupcake. This is what we normally think of as interdisciplinary research, she says, and the audience agrees. However, to get to where we have to be, she says, it needs to be more than that. The problem is, these parts of the cupcake don’t interact much do they? She then takes the cupcake, puts it down on the table, and brings her fist down on the cupcake again and again and again – smashing it into a big mush of cake, icing, chocolate, sprinkles and pieces of cherry. Pieces of cupcake land all over the table. It’s a mess. The shock in the room is palpable. She then takes all these pieces of cake and squeezes them together to make a ball of the messy guck. She holds it up to the audience and says “THIS is interdisciplinarity”. 

Arguably, the smushed cake actually represents transdisciplinary research, as it includes non-academics who co-design and undertake the research as equal partners. Transdisciplinarity, therefore, goes beyond interdisciplinarity. But perhaps we should not take the cake analogy too far, after all, social sciences and community engagement should not be thought of as purely decorative, but as central to any research process, and arts-based research is not in the cupcake recipe at all. But the analogy serves to make the point that interdisciplinary research is more than just loosely connecting researchers and their methods, but instead it develops research approaches that draw strengths from a range of different disciplines, which are then integrated in ways that better reflect the realities of the contemporary world.

Of course, not all research projects are smashed cupcakes, or fully interdisciplinary. In  Cambridge Prisms: Plastics we welcome cupcakes in both their whole and mashed-up forms. We invite articles that bring together disciplines in creative and exciting ways to provide new insights or approaches to problems. These articles are ideally impact-focused, problem-centred, and socially accountable. We know that this is difficult and that sometimes these approaches might be risky, experimental and untested. We also know that there are funding challenges, language barriers, and that working with people from fundamentally different disciplines requires trust and acceptance. However, given the scale and effects of the global plastics crisis, we see little alternative to embracing these challenges.