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Crossing disciplines to address urban sustainability

Paskins, J; Bell, S; Croxford, B; Haklay, M; Julier, S; (2012) Crossing disciplines to address urban sustainability. Sustainability: The Journal of Record , 5 (1) pp. 34-37. 10.1089/SUS.2012.9991. Green open access

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Abstract

This paper presents findings from the evaluation of Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable Urban Spaces (BTG), a novel interdisciplinary sustainability research funding program at University College London (UCL), funded by the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). All of the EPSRC's Bridging the Gaps programs aim to initiate and support interdisciplinary collaboration within a university. The program at UCL was designed to create research partnerships that focus on problems in the area of sustainable urban spaces, an area that features complex problems that often overlap different academic disciplines. The program initially focused on building relationships within the three UCL faculties: The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, The Faculty of Engineering Sciences, and The Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, but subsequently brought in participants from other faculties. Bridging the Gaps has brought together researchers working on different elements of a problem, allowing each of them to contribute approaches from their own discipline. This paper presents feedback from participants in the program. Respondents discuss their experience in cross disciplinary working and its importance for their work. We address the question of whether the benefits are outweighed by the complexities of crossing disciplines, and we investigate the role that programs like BTG can play in making the process easier. We also discuss the challenge of creating the conditions for interdisciplinary work and ways in which we can use our experience to minimize the barriers of crossing disciplines in the future.

Type: Article
Title: Crossing disciplines to address urban sustainability
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1089/SUS.2012.9991
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/SUS.2012.9991
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2012 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers. All rights reserved. The final publication is available from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers at http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/SUS.2012.9991
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1343040
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