Robert Evans
Researching the Sustainable City
My research into the idea of interdisciplinarity is carried with Professor Simon Marvin of the SURF Centre. It uses the sustainable city as a case study for examining collaboration. Sustainability seems inherently interdisciplinary as the problems it raises cross so many boundaries inside the academy and without. Whilst not directly addressing the problems of climate change and the other environmental issues that are central to mainstream research on cities and sustainability, examining how such research is carried out and used provides an important insight into the practical challenges of doing interdisciplinary work.
Key ideas
My work on interdisciplinarity combines my own experiences as a researcher on an EPSRC research project, in which I worked with colleagues in Survey, Civil Engineering and Town and Country Planning, with my more recent work on the nature of expertise. In making the connections between these two sets of ideas, two sets of questions have emerged:
- how desirable or practical is interdisciplinarity? The idea of an 'integrated account' that combines the insights of each disciplinary tradition sounds appealing but also raises serious problems. Taken to its limit it resembles the now defunct 'Unity of Science' movement but even in a more moderated form it remains problematic. For example, if disciplines provide paradigms, who is to say that these paradigms have to be commensurable? Or, put another way, is interdisciplinarity simply another attempt to create the 'grand narrative' so trenchantly criticised by feminists and other scholars?
- If interdisciplinarity is nonetheless necessary how can it be promoted most effectively? One of the insights that you can draw from STS and other sociological fieldwork is that it is possible to come to understand the world views of others but that it is hard work. Recognising this may help to understand how and why interdisciplinary research projects fail or succeed as one activity that is frequently not 'budgeted' for is a sustained learning period where participants simply learn how each other think.
These ideas were also discussed at an ESF Workshop on Urban Science organised by Professor Marvin and myself and held in Manchester in January 2005.
Key Publications
The most recent publication, which directly addresses the problems of interdisciplinary research and proposes both a typology of different approaches and some recommendations for good practice is available as:
Evans, R J and Marvin, S (2006) ‘Researching the Sustainable City: Three Modes of Interdisciplinarity’, Environment and Planning (A), 38(6): 1009-1028. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a37317>
Two papers which draw on the earlier research project, and which thus emphasis the difficulties of interdisciplinarity rather than their resolution are:
Evans, R J, Guy, S and Marvin S (2001) 'Views of the City: Multiple Pathways to Sustainable Transport Futures', Local Environment 6(2) 121-33. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549830120052773
Evans, Robert, Marvin, Simon and Guy, Simon (1999) 'Making a Difference: SSK and Urban Energy Policies'. Science Technology and Human Values 24(1): 104-130. <http://sth.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/1/105
Last updated on 1 July, 2010