Supporting Emerging Fields:
Connecting researchers across disciplines and geographies

Connecting researchers across disciplines and geographies to focus their attention and effort on new questions and methods can support emerging fields of study with the potential to illuminate and address new societal challenges.

Recent research reveals the extent to which academic disciplines are organizationally and physically siloed on university campuses, stifling the emergence of new fields of study that cut across existing knowledge boundaries (Catalini 2017, Miranda and Claudel 2021, Roche et al 2022). Particularly in the face of rapidly evolving societal challenges, siloed disciplines and campuses can hinder researchers from pursuing new directions of study with the potential to illuminate and potentially address these challenges.

Interventions that convene researchers across disciplines and geographies can reduce the transaction costs of bridging these silos. For example, attendees at in-person convenings are more likely to develop research collaborations with each other than with otherwise similar researchers who did not attend the convenings (Chai and Freeman 2019, Campos, Leon, and McQuillin 2019). Attendees at in-person convenings are also more likely to develop research collaborations with each other if they spend more time interacting at the convenings (Boudreau et al 2017, Zajdela et al 2022). These findings suggest that events and activities that bridge disciplines and geographies can support emerging fields of study that cross disciplinary and campus boundaries.

The Social Science Research Council has extensive experience designing events, research consortia, and online knowledge platforms that bridge silos and build knowledge networks connecting researchers across disciplines and geographies, supporting the emergence of new fields of study. In this work we are supported by an efficient and responsive administrative infrastructure that excels at event planning and management, online platform development, fellowship and research grant administration, marketing and communications, award management, and outcome reporting.