The wicked problems facing the world are beyond complex and require multidisciplinary collaboration as part of their solution. As organisations employing personnel from a great breadth of disciplines, who hold a great depth of specialist knowledge, universities are positioned well for multidisciplinary innovation and problem solving. Yet most academics spend their time focussed on their own discipline. New academics are told that to be successful they should become the world’s expert in a narrow field. Schools and Departments are measured and rewarded based on research performance in specific Fields of Research. Whilst there is interest in multidisciplinary efforts, the culture of the university could be described as having a “scarcity mindset” which can stifle innovation. In a scarcity mindset there is a more competitive relationship, and the focus is placed on attracting more resources to your own interests. In an abundance mindset there are enough resources to enable collaboration and risk taking with the principal being if you benefit then I benefit.

In this interactive session we will discuss the culture of university collaboration and look at ways forward. For example, rather than trying to change organisational culture, the nature of deep discipline knowledge could be embraced and worked around using a strengths-based approach. This leads to the idea of rather than everyone gaining the skills to work more multidisciplinary there being specialised ‘champions of generalism’. These champions would be the general practitioners of the academic world, good at diagnosing a problem and then being able to liaise with discipline experts to implement a solution. Is it time to acknowledge that multidisciplinary working groups require specialists in general practice? Do generalists need to be better recognised and represented at universities? What are the barriers to the rise of generalism, does gender bias have any influence? Is the university system able to recognise and measure interdisciplinarity? Is it possible to see impact within the current system or is change needed?

The session will be interactive and will rely on the input of those participating (through smaller breakout groups) to draw out meaningful insights. These insights will be summarised and used to enable multidisciplinary research into the future.

This session is being run by the Future Urban Researchers Network (FURN), a group of early career academics and higher degree by research scholars who are interested in developing interdisciplinary skills, capability and connections to enhance impact and knowledge mobilisation.

For further information contact nick.brown@rmit.edu.au