The Interdisciplinary Advantage? Knowledge Integration and Career Navigation under Uncertainty

Interdisciplinary research promises innovation, but in practice it confronts researchers with ambiguity, competing perspectives, and structural constraints. This workshop focuses on how to actually conduct interdisciplinary research as an individual scholar — whether working solo or within a team. Rather than abstract debates about the science system, we concentrate on what you can control: how to design knowledge integration processes, how to navigate uncertainty, and how to develop a professional profile that remains both intellectually substantial and strategically viable.

On the first day, we explore knowledge integration under conditions of uncertainty. Participants learn to distinguish additive collaboration from genuine epistemic integration and to identify where real added value emerges. We work with concrete exercises for perspective shifts, boundary work, and process planning: How do you structure a research question so that multiple perspectives genuinely interact? How do you tolerate and productively use ambiguity instead of prematurely resolving it? When do interdisciplinary projects fail, and why can that be a good thing? The goal is to leave with applicable mental models and practical tools for designing interdisciplinary projects.

On the second day, we turn to career navigation between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. While macro-level constraints of the academic system will be acknowledged, the emphasis lies on actionable strategies and role-models. Participants reflect on depth and breadth, positioning, and sustainable profile development. We discuss how to cultivate ambiguity tolerance as a professional asset, how to communicate across evaluative boundaries, and how to align process design with long-term career trajectories.

Day 1 (3h)

(Creating epistemic substance from difference) Knowledge Integration under Uncertainty

Participants will understand:

• What distinguishes true integration from mere inspiration

• What forms of uncertainty characterize interdisciplinary research

• How to generate epistemic value from uncertainty

Day 2 (2h)

(Navigating a fluid science landscape) Careers Between Disciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity

Participants will understand:

• The structural tension between disciplinary logic and problem orientation

• Which career profiles can work

• How to navigate strategically without losing epistemic substance

Dates and Times:

• 11 May, 2026: 9:30–12:30

• 12 May,2026: 14:30–17:00

Please note that this course is GIGA internal only.

About the lecturers:

Silvio Suckow is ‘Meta Researcher’ at the ‘Weizenbaum Digital Science Center’. Previously, he spent five years at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where he worked as a PhD student in the project "Interdisciplinarity and Research Creativity". In his dissertation, he negotiates the dynamizing tensions that arise from science policy requirements such as interdisciplinarity and the practices as well as career logics of scientific disciplines. As a transfer product, the online course "Interdisciplinary Competence" (open access) has been created: idc.wzb.eu.

Carla Hornberg is a Research Fellow of the Research Department “Skill Formation and Labor Markets” at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Her research fields are education and training as well as labor and labor markets. She holds a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, looking at the role of labor market allocation for the education-training relationship in international comparison in her dissertation.