Strengthening multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research at Stony Brook University is the primary responsibility of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research. Specifically, the main objective of this office is to encourage, orchestrate and support the creative research activities of our faculty, especially in the context of facilitating greater collaboration across different disciplines and to help those teams develop and successfully submit large multidisciplinary proposals. In essence, this constitutes an effective platform needed to overcome barriers to team formation and collaborative research, necessary components for today’s scientific and societal challenges.
The Multidisciplinary Approach
To support research addressing complex problems, several major agencies have announced programs that require multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to bring together
investigators from different disciplines. Although these terms are often used interchangeably, funding agencies such as NIH and NSF use specific terms to express the expected
level of interaction among investigators. In this context, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research are defined as the coordinated efforts of several disciplines to
achieve a common goal and the integration of several disciplines creating a unified outcome that is sustained and substantial enough to enable a new discipline to develop over time,
respectively.
Similarly, many training grant opportunities require the development of curricula and research opportunities that cross disciplines. Good examples are the NIH’s roadmap for medical research, http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/, which is designed to foster interdisciplinary biomedical research by lowering artificial organizational barriers to research, and NSF’s investments in priority areas, http://www.nsf.gov/news/priority_areas/.
While a single PI may have expertise in multiple areas of research, it is common to bring together a team of investigators drawn from different disciplines to address complex problems and come up with innovative solutions. However, developing multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary proposals is often far more complex than single investigator proposals. It requires forming a team, establishing shared goals, integrating concepts from the different disciplines, holding numerous meetings, and a higher level of organization. Often multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary funding opportunities are cast as Center proposals, which require far more than a description of the proposed research. For example, aside from research, center proposals often have to describe organizational structure, outreach activities, and educational programs.
Examples of Thematic Multidisciplinary Groups
In the past, the Office of the Associate Vice President for
Research has organized several Faculty Working Groups on Campus
in the areas of:
- Nano Science and Engineering
- Obesity
- Sensors
- Astrobiology
- Biocomplexity
- Immunology
- Energy
Office
| Office of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research W5510 Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, Stony Brook NY 11794-3365 |
Phone: (631) 632-8589 |
| Office of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research | ||
| Associate Vice President for Research | Michael Hadjiargyrou, PhD |
(631) 632-1480
|
| Funding Opportunities Administrator | Peter Saal |
(631) 632-9033
|
| Multidisciplinary Project Associate | Jin Bentley |
(631) 632-8589
|
| Funding Opportunities Data Specialist | Deborah Mann |
(631) 632-8331
|
