Research across boundaries: how do we prepare students to solve the biggest world problems?
Being able to communicate with people who think differently is essential if we wish to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. In healthcare, for example, we need doctors, technologists and social scientists to work together to make healthcare accessible and affordable to all. We rely on skilled researchers, many with PhDs, to work on such challenges. But do we properly prepare them to work in these increasingly multi-disciplinary environments? Dr Nicola Mountford, Dr Tara Cusack. Dr Threase Kessie, and Matthew Coleman investigated the experiences of PhD students on interdisciplinary PhD programmes and distilled what they learned into a model for interdisciplinary programme design at PhD level.