Authors: Prof. Delia Ferri, Prof. Mac MacLachlan, Prof. Deirdre Desmond
Research Stream: Symposium
Another year has gone by very fast and Ideas in ALL is now a lively three year old “toddler”! The blog was set up on 3 December 2020, amidst the pandemic, to support the dissemination of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute’s multi- and interdisciplinary research. Since the outset, Ideas in ALL has grown significantly, offering ALL members and collaborators opportunities to showcase their projects in an accessible and reader-friendly way. It also engages a range of stakeholders to help make their voices heard, to reflect on current issues and highlight their lived experiences.
To promote scientific rigour and readability, we have further boosted and streamlined our editorial process thanks to a fantastic editorial team that provides support and constructive feedback to all authors. We extend our gratitude to editorial team members, past and present for their efforts; special mention for Léa Urzel, who recently concluded her time with the editorial board, and warm welcome to our new editors, who have brought fresh energy and ideas. Undoubtedly the growth of the blog has mirrored that of the ALL Institute itself, which has become an important hub for interdisciplinary collaboration across MU and a point of reference for international researchers and stakeholders. ALL is now home for academics and researchers from 22 Departments and Officesacross Maynooth University, as well as external members from civil society, industry and policymakers, intergovernmental organizations and United Nations (UN) agencies.
This year’s symposium celebrates and reflects on the growth of ALL as interdisciplinary and participatory hub. The blog posts, in different ways, show how members of ALL, belonging to distinct scholarly fields, have come together and have challenged traditional concepts and methods of investigation. They have crafted research projects that, in line with a shared understanding of interdisciplinarity, integrate diverse epistemologies, concepts, theories, perspectives, information, data and methods. This symposium also showcases the important contribution that ALL makes traversing the boundaries of social sciences and STEM, in aligning with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), but also in giving voice to social debates.
Interdisciplinarity is not just a buzz word nor is it a merely fashionable way of doing research or a recent trend. Interdisciplinarity is essential to addressing complex societal challenges and environmental threats, to redress engendered social disadvantage, and to keep up with technological evolution (Bromham et al, 2016). Interdisciplinarity brings together the single-window images that different disciplines offer, to enhance our understanding through multiple interacting and moving images of the topics we study – hence our understanding becomes more ‘life-like’, richer and more useful. It may also be argued that interdisciplinarity is useful to the evolution of specific disciplines and allows the emergence of new fields of investigation. Okamura (2019) has shown that interdisciplinarity significantly increases research impact. Yet there are many challenges; according to Leahey (2018), scholars who engage in Interdisciplinary research experience a decrease in productivity, attributable to coordination and communication challenges of working with diverse teams. Critics of interdisciplinarity contend that knowledge framings and epistemology from different disciplines are not adequately intertwined or merged. For example, as shown by Schipper et al with regard to climate change research, this scattered approach might result in incomplete and misleading analysis. Despite potential drawbacks, combining a plurality of narratives and integrating different disciplines is critical to understanding and developing person-centred systems and evidence-based policies, which are at the core of ALL’s mission.
Our reflective commitment towards aligning with the SDG, which we renew every year, besides being rooted in interdisciplinary research, links also to the constant effort to embed engaged and participatory approaches in our projects and activities. In fact, ALL’s projects employ methodological paradigms that aim to produce positive social impact within communities affected by the research and to empower people. Furthermore, a central aspect of ALL has also been the establishment of a reciprocal relationship and dialogue between researchers, stakeholders and different communities, beyond specific research projects. ALL scholars have challenged in their work the lay/expert divide by highlighting expertise by experience, especially amongst communities that have been historically marginalized. In ALL, we are aware of structural imbalances of power within community-based participatory research; we seek to promote and nurture complementarity of skills between academia and communities. Consistent with ALL’s ethos, the Ideas in ALL blog has hosted posts that challenge consolidated approaches. Further, it has published accounts of lived experiences that offer a counternarrative to majoritarian discourses. This year’s symposium offers a snapshot of our work, the challenges we face as active research community, and of the transformative power that our research aims to have.
Happy reading!
Links below to the 6 posts in this years symposium
Celebrating the Third Anniversary of the ‘Ideas in ALL Blog’ in the 2023 Winter Symposium; a Commentary from the Editorial Team
Building a Digitally Wealthy society with the support of the ALL Institute
Moving Forward to Have a More Inclusive Society
Reflecting on a Journey of Meaningful Impact: Celebrating with the ALL-Institute
Developing the Campus as a Healthy Environment: The MU Healthy Campus Steering Group