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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 1975
Although there are many problems in development research that can be adequately analysed along the lines of traditional single disciplinary research, these studies frequently reach the boundaries of each discipline and require some way of combining with the knowledge of neighbouring sciences to further the analysis. This combination of knowledge may be encyclopaedic only in the sense that the various inquiries into the same or related problems by various disciplines are simultaneously attempted and their conclusions are arranged in parallel or cumulative fashion so as to facilitate a synthetical understanding of the different aspects of the development process. Such a type of research may be called multidisciplinary.
1 In the autumn of 1970, I had a chance to visit most of the interdisciplinary research institutes in the U.S. and Europe, including Czechoslovakia, Poland and the USSR. Most of them specialized in area studies. Nevertheless, the views expressed here are primarily based on my personal experiences and observations as the director of an interdisciplinary research institute at Kyoto University, Japan. Hence, the opinions of the paper may be biased in favor of university institutes. A friend of mine who holds a responsible position in a governmental institute holds that university professors are usually very poor administrators. Since, however, the necessary number of capable administrators is very small, it should be possible to find exceptionally capable administrators with a sufficient knowledge of the scholarly world. Hence, the opinions of this friend of mine cannot be held against the advantage of university research institutes whose directors are elected from among university professors.
2 For further insights into the subject, see: Deutsch, Karl W., John Platt and Dieter Senghaas, “Conditions Favoring Major Advances in Social Sciences”, Science, February 1971.
Rieger H. C, “Some Problems of Interdisciplinary Research”, Inter-Discipline, January 1966.
Wood, B., “Area Studies”, in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences.
