multidiciplinary research

SWOT analysis of multidisciplinary research

The SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is a strategic planning measure developed from Marketing Science, and applied to assess the strategic potential of a development-related research .

It has been widely applied to diagnose challenges and opportunities in development practice, including; for example, direct budget support .SWOT analysis has been found to result in superior decision-making compared to relatively unstructured methods “brainstorming” .

Strengths of multidisciplinary research

The benefit of multidisciplinary research which was the most cited is that it provides different approaches and perspectives on problems. It provides fresh view point, cross-fertilization, exchanges of methodology. In turn it helps enhancing one’s disciplines thanks to the feedback generated. Multidisciplinary research enhances the vision of researchers on their own discipline.

The second most cited benefit of multidisciplinary projects is that they are a way to acquire insights on other disciplines. Therefore multidisciplinary collaborations contribute to the lifelong learning of researchers. Moreover this knowledge is the most up-to-date and practical one. There is more shared knowledge by working together. Multidisciplinary projects facilitate exchanges between labs. Also, while reading papers from other disciplines you are limited by the content of what is published. While working in collaboration with researchers from other disciplines you can better understand what are their hypotheses and methodologies. It is much richer.

Most people agreed on the fact that multidisciplinary projects are a way to acquire a new network of researchers and to approach people from...

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...h other at the centre of the consortium and new entrants at the periphery.

Thus, it can be rightly concluded that despite having a number of merits, multidisciplinary research suffers from problems which can only be removed with care and caution. Indeed, ‘there is a lot of encouragement for multi-disciplinary research, from policy makers and research funders, and it is generally seen as a ‘good thing’. Yet the reality is that this is often very difficult to execute. For instance, the definition and the evaluation of the outputs (e.g. prototypes, patents or papers) vary across the disciplines, and the results of multi-disciplinary work might well be regarded as below the standard that each individual disciplines seeks to impose on its own work. Consequently, those engaging in multidisciplinary work lose rather than gain credibility in their own ‘home discipline’.