Create Diverse Interdisciplinary Interactive Situations

As complex scientific and technological and social issues increasingly rely on the joint research of multiple disciplines,the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents is of increasingly important strategic significance for creating new knowledge and enhancing the country’s core competitiveness.Since the end of 20th century,China’s universities have begun to try to train interdisciplinary doctoral students,but progress is not smooth.At present,the training of interdisciplinary doctoral students in China is facing many problems and difficulties.For example,the lack of top-level design and interdisciplinary policy support;doctoral students restrained by disciplinary structure;the insufficiency of interdisciplinary communication and interaction between supervisors and doctoral students.Similar to China,the development of interdisciplinary doctoral education in the UK was relatively late as well.However,the interdisciplinary doctoral program of the UK’s Centre for Doctoral Training has formed an unique interdisciplinary research capacity training model for doctoral students.This successful experience is very worthy of summarizing and learning.This research will focus on the practice of cultivating the interdisciplinary research capacity of doctoral students in UK’s universities.By exploring the training mode and characteristics of its doctoral training centre,it reveals its surpassing traditional doctoral programs,so as to provide advisory suggestions for the training of interdisciplinary doctoral students in China.Based on the existing research results,it can be found that interdisciplinary research ability is the core goal and important achievement of interdisciplinary doctoral training.Defining clearly the connotation and components of the interdisciplinary research capacity of doctoral students is the basis for exploring the cultivation of interdisciplinary doctoral students.According to the theories of Bromme and Nikitina,we can regard the discipline as a language in a broad sense,and the communication between different disciplines can be regarded as a dialogue between different languages.Therefore,the essence of interdisciplinary research capacity is the ability to dialogue with different disciplinary perspectives.Through the analysis of the interdisciplinary research process,it can be concluded that the interdisciplinary research capacity of doctoral students includes two levels of intellectual factors and non-intellectual factors.Intellectual factors include the ability to form an interdisciplinary knowledge structure and the ability to evaluate insights from different disciplines,the ability to integrate contradictory insights from different disciplines,the ability to communicate with people in different disciplines and professional fields,and the ability to collaborate in interdisciplinary teams;Non-intellectual factors refer to personality and attitudes,including curiosity and open-mind to different disciplines.Whether it is intellectual or non-intellectual factors,they can be stimulated and cultivated.UK’s Centre for Doctoral Training is a new thing in British universities.Its occurrence is mainly attributed to the top-level promotion of the British Research Council.The research committee uses funding as a lever to guide British universities to reshape the vision of doctoral training.The first doctoral training centre funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council(EPSRC),was established in 2003,and other research councils followed suit and set up more doctoral training centres.Centre for Doctoral Training recruits doctoral students from different disciplines to provide them with interdisciplinary research training.At the same time,it pays attention to cohort building,and actively cooperates with industry,government and non-governmental organizations.After nearly 20 years of development,the doctoral training centre has mainly formed two models:CDT---based on one university to train interdisciplinary doctoral students,and DTP---based on the joint training of interdisciplinary doctoral students from multiple universities.Meanwhile,since the 1990s,The British doctoral student training has shifted from the traditional apprenticeship model to the cognitive apprenticeship model.Its characteristics include joint tutorial system,comprehensive training for doctoral students,and inter-faculty doctoral community built by graduate schools and doctoral schools.Therefore,interdisciplinary doctoral students of the doctoral training center interdisciplinary program and the traditional doctoral program cultivate interdisciplinary research capabilities in two different environments.Based on the qualitative survey of five universities in the UK,this study established two grounded theories:firstly,UK’s universities cultivate the interdisciplinary research capacity of doctoral students by creating three interdisciplinary interaction situations:knowledge interaction,interpersonal interaction and organizational interaction;Secondly,the core of doctoral interdisciplinary research capacity training is to promote doctoral students to acquire tacit knowledge and tacit ability in the interdisciplinary interactive situations.The knowledge interaction situation is characterized by the construction and application of interdisciplinary knowledge structure.Doctoral students in the doctoral training center accumulate relevant disciplinary knowledge by participating in multidisciplinary module courses,skill training courses,and to acquire interdisciplinary knowledge by attending cuttingedge interdisciplinary serial lectures,interdisciplinary courses and interdisciplinary conferences,as well as to practice applying interdisciplinary knowledge structures to solve interdisciplinary research problems by participating in the mini-research project,team challenge project and individual projects;The interpersonal interaction situation is based on the participation of interdisciplinary communities of practice.The doctoral students in the doctoral training center cultivate interdisciplinary research capacity through cooperation and interaction with interdisciplinary supervisors,mutual assistant learning with interdisciplinary cohort peers,and participation in diversified interdisciplinary community networks;The organizational interaction situation is characterized by the connection between the "ba" and the "ba",from the "ba"connection within the organization,including inter-faculty joint teaching,cross-faculty cooperative research and doctoral training centers’ cooperation,to the "ba" connection between organizations,including the connection with the industry,the connection between the university and the university,and the off-campus internship and work.Not only that,the internal operating mechanism of interdisciplinary situated interaction is to help interdisciplinary doctoral students accumulate,acquire and create more tacit knowledge,as well as to promote their tacit ability to solve complicated interdisciplinary questions and problems.In the comparison between the doctoral training centre project and the traditional doctoral program,on the one hand,interdisciplinary doctoral students are faced with the complexity of interdisciplinary research,the attitude of supervisors,and the problems of cooperative supervision,as well as the challenges brought by the publication of discipline-led journals and the research evaluation system.On the other hand,although doctoral students in the doctoral training centre may be constrained by mandatory compulsory and elective courses,and interdisciplinary doctoral students in traditional doctoral programs have more freedom to carry out interdisciplinary learning,the interdisciplinary doctoral students of traditional doctoral programs still face more difficulties and challenges,including the lack of training in interdisciplinary research methods and opportunities and space for interdisciplinary communication.Finally,based on the experience of UK’s doctoral students’ interdisciplinary research capacity training,this study puts forward three suggestions for the training of interdisciplinary doctoral students in China,including the government and the university’s top-level interdisciplinary policy guidance and corresponding funding support,the reform of the organizational structure of faculties and the construction of interdisciplinary organizations,and the strengthening of interdisciplinary research training for doctoral students and the construction of an interdisciplinary community for doctoral students.