Interdisciplinary research is a buzz phrase these days, but how much are people actually doing it…I mean, really doing it (not just putting their names on big multi-PI grants)? And what can/should be done to encourage scientists and research institutions to do more than just pay lip service to it?

It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, both for a story I’m working on (one big reason I’ve been not-so-blogadelic here—more on that later) and for the future development of Nature Network. The recent formation of the collaboration group here on NN has further spurred my thinking.

So as a first step, let me open up the floor here for discussion.

1. What are some good examples of good, productive interdisciplinary collaborations that you’ve seen or actually experienced first-hand as something that really worked?

2. What were the key ingredients for making these collaborations successful? Ingredients can include funding and administrative mechanisms, the types of people involved, the types of questions and communications involved, culture, technology, websites, specific features of websites, etc etc.

3. What more can be done to encourage more such collaborations to happen?