































Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023


Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

50 
 

 

Multidisciplinary Consciousness: A Spur for Intellectual 

Creativity and Collaboration 

 

By  

Duve Nakolisa 

 

 

Abstract 

The objective of this research paper is to provoke renewed interest in multidisciplinary 

research and collaboration among academic researchers. The paper is in seven parts, 

with the first being introductory remarks. Next is a brief discussion of the critical 

terms of the study which is followed by analytical insights on why academic 

specialization should be conducted in a manner that makes room for multidisciplinary 

collaboration. Other topics explored by the study include the root of scholarly 

insularity and the need to ensure that learning at the universities is carried out in a 

focused and inclusive way. The last two parts of the study draw upon concrete 

disciplinary linkages and examples to underscore the fact that academic researchers, 

via multidisciplinary collaboration, can benefit from the inter-related and inter-

dependent nature of scholarly research. The paper is an expanded and updated version 

of a short commentary on the subject earlier written by the author. 

Keywords: multidisciplinary, academic research, collaboration, specialization  

 

 

Introduction 

The twenty-first century demands that scholars should have a broad 

understanding of what is happening in disciplines other than theirs. Although 

this need has always been there, it is now critically important due to the 

unprecedented developments in various fields that have altogether expanded 

the frontiers of knowledge, in theoretical and applied terms, beyond the 

traditional boundaries of many academic disciplines. The main triggers of this 

phenomenon include not only scientific and technological innovations but also 

the invasive force of ICT, especially the internet, and the complex nature of 

contemporary social issues  that demand collaborative multidisciplinary 

approaches before they could be adequately understood, managed or solved.  



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

51 
 

While the intricacy and interwoven nature of our 21st-century world may 

necessitate some reform in the way courses are taught in our universities in 

order to promote cross-disciplinary learning among the students, it also 

demands that university teachers should develop the habit of peering into 

developments in other fields of study. There is need for acquisition of a 

multidisciplinary mindset – the capacity to see, appreciate or be open to 

enquiries that pertain to other relevant aspects of a matter. Such a 

multidisciplinary interest, even if occasionally indulged in, can broaden 

research perspectives, open fresh vistas of collaboration and, perhaps, throw up 

unexpected solutions to some supposedly discipline-specific challenges. 

Definition of Terms   

In strictly definitive terms, multidisciplinarity is distinct from 

interdisciplinarity. According to Choi and Pak (2006), “Multidisciplinarity 

draws on knowledge from different disciplines but stays within their 

boundaries. Interdisciplinarity analyzes, synthesizes and harmonizes links 

between disciplines into a coordinated and coherent whole.” The prefix, 

“multi”, in our context here, is used to unify both terms as each of them 

involves links between two or more disciplines. Multidisciplinary 

consciousness is required to initiate such linkages or multidisciplinary 

collaborations. Ajakaye & Ogunniyi (2021) have explained some aspects of 

this view of multidisciplinary collaboration: 

Multidisciplinary approaches involve drawing appropriately from 

multiple disciplines to redefine problems outside of normal boundaries 

and arrive at solutions based on a new understanding of complex 

situations. Multidisciplinary can also be defined as a particular 

relationship existing between disciplines or collaboration of a few 

disciplines around the joint theme. Therefore, it is where two or more 

academic disciplines collaborate for a specific purpose, for instance, 

when computer scientists, psychologists and sociologists cooperate in the 

design of human/computer interfaces, use of skills and knowledge from 

the disciplines mentioned.  

In practice, multidisciplinary research engagements often cross boundaries and 

may result to holistic integrations and outcomes. This is why this paper uses 

the term “multidisciplinary”, in a rather broad sense, to include 

interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary (that is, beyond disciplinary) 

interests and approaches. 

Balancing Specialization and Multidisciplinarity 

Although the university system offers each programme of study as a distinct 

course, the prefix “uni“ (meaning “single” or “one”) appears to support a 

narrow pursuit of a singular course of study or skill set. While a university is 



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

52 
 

set up to produce people knowledgeable and skillful in their chosen fields of 

endeavour, many a disciplinary content is conceptually too restrictive or too 

narrow in its approaches to solve some complex academic or real-life 

problems. Of course, specialization in a focused area of study has undeniable 

benefits, especially in terms of the competence in or mastery of a given field it 

delivers. However, implicit and explicit in that focus is the exclusion of other 

precincts of knowledge, conceptualizations and approaches. 

The Root of Scholarly Insularity 

There are insufficient cases of multidisciplinary cooperation in our universities, 

and this is largely due to the restrictively inward-looking way courses and 

academic enquiries are constructed and conducted and also due to students’ 

shallow or erroneous preconception of the courses they are admitted to read. 

As a result of these, among other institutional reasons, many people who 

graduate and choose an academic career do so without a deep understanding of 

the fact that although “every discipline constructs, organizes, and 

communicates knowledge differently” (Stoller & Stansel, 2021), there are areas 

in which many disciplines overlap. This means that though disciplinary 

perceptions and methodologies are bound to be different even when tackling 

the same problem, a number of research objectives can still benefit from 

multidisciplinary collaboration – a need seldom felt and met in our universities 

because of the way many lecturers cocoon themselves in their departmental 

chambers. While multidisciplinary exertion may or may not enhance an 

academic’s titular climb, it holds an invaluable key that could open remarkable 

doors of creative thinking, paradigm shifts, innovations, and game-changing 

solutions to thorny life issues. Sometimes, multidisciplinary understanding and 

applications can even extend the edge of a scholar’s initial discipline or throw 

them, with pioneering eminence, into the frontier of new field of study. 

Enhancing Broadminded Academic Pursuits 

While retaining the necessity of taking university students through the 

corridors of compartmentalized learning, it is important to cross-ventilate them 

with some basic understanding of what is happening in other fields of study, 

including artistic, scientific and technological fields. The compound word, 

university (uni+versity) possesses an interpretative scope adequate enough to 

accommodate multidisciplinary cooperation. Conceptualized as “single”, we 

have in “uni“ the student’s unit of primary concern – their major course, if you 

like. However, when “uni“ is interpreted as “one”, this linguistic element 

becomes somewhat expansive as it merges etymologically with the root 

word ūniversus (Latin for “whole”) to include the various points of general 

interest, acquirable as concepts or tools, that could augment the student’s 

navigational capacity in the real world.  



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

53 
 

In essence, every university degree should be a focused area of study that 

accommodates real-life-enhancing understanding of other vital areas. Cohered 

in ūniversus is the idea of “universal”, especially in its usage as wholeness of 

separate but connected things or ideas. In this sense, therefore, a university 

ideally should be a universe of ideas constantly tested for veracity or practical 

relevance by systematic research and/or experimentation. It is often in pursuit 

of this academic or problem-solving enquiry that academic researchers usually 

see the need for conceptual linkages and applied connections across disciplines 

that would enable them to gain creative insights, drive innovation and 

development and, possibly, achieve utilitarian results. 

Being impassioned to solve a real-life problem can ignite, in search of solution 

to that problem, a scholar’s interest in multidisciplinary collaboration and this, 

in turn, can fertilize a scholar’s ideas or unleash their creativity in new 

directions. Awareness of what is happening in other fields broadens a scholar’s 

mindset or vision beyond the narrow zone of their primary academic concern. 

It boosts the hatching of fresh insight, widens the circumference of one’s points 

of reference, thereby enlarging and deepening understanding. 

No Course is an Island 

Adapting John Donne’s ageless quote, “No man is an island” (Donne, 1624), 

one can assert that no course of study or academic enquiry is an island. In spite 

of differences in subject area, focus, methodology, and categorical frames of 

reference, connections exist among various academic fields. The humanities, 

for instance, cover areas such as Language and Literary Studies, Linguistics, 

Philosophy, History, Fine and Applied Arts, Mass Communication, Theatre 

Arts, Filmmaking, Music, Academic Study of Religion, Media Studies, 

Cultural Studies, and Culinary Art. Each of these seemingly distinct areas share 

affinities with each other and with disciplines traditionally placed in other 

categories, such as education, medicine, technology and the social or physical 

sciences. Hence, we speak of food technology, medicinal diets, the political 

science of teaching and learning, socio-linguistics, media communication 

technologies, the philosophy of science, and the cultural studies of science, 

which, according to Rouse (2015), is 

a multidisciplinary field drawing from history, anthropology, feminist 

theory, sociology, and philosophy of science, treats scientific practices as 

historically situated, meaningful patterns of interaction with the world.  

Although language studies are classified as arts, conceptions of meaning and 

meaning-articulation (Rouse, 2015) cut across all disciplines.  

The social and management sciences, because of their contextual complexity, 

may be deemed more subjective than the medical, engineering, environmental 



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

54 
 

and physical sciences but they all share certain processes and analytical tools. 

Their datasets can be connected because they commonly use qualitative and 

quantitative research that may entail the deployment of statistical models. 

Although the physical and applied sciences rely more on causal and diagnostic 

research, there abound linkages between them and the social sciences. 

Weidlich (1991) has explored the synergy between physics and the social 

sciences. In his book, Physics and social science — The approach of 

synergetics,  

Universally applicable methods originating in statistical physics and 

synergetics are combined with concepts from social science in order to 

set up and to apply a model construction concept for the quantitative 

description of a broad class of collective dynamical phenomena within 

society. 

His “systematic approach to mathematical modeling in the social sciences” 

presented “A general concept…which allows of setting up mathematical 

models for stochastic and quasi deterministic dynamic processes in social 

systems” (Weidlich, 2000). 

As we can see, there are various ways in which certain topics or areas of 

research can be connected across different disciplines. 

Examples of Multidisciplinary Interventions and Outcomes  

One good thing about having a multidisciplinary consciousness is that it could 

lead the academic researcher to draw inspirations from unexpected or 

seemingly remote quarters. A cynic may ask, “What benefit can a post-

graduate student of English derive from reading a paper on statistical 

methods?” The answer to this question is now history. In the 1930s, statistics 

enabled Gray and Leary to locate and measure variables of writing style 

(Danielson, 1987). Their effort produced a prescriptive procedure. Inspired, 

Rudolph Flesch did further research that resulted into his 1943 PhD thesis, 

Marks of Readable Style. Aided by statistics, Flesch reduced his findings to 

numerical data and made them formulaically applicable. That marriage of 

language and statistics, known to have improved reading ease by up to 60%, 

became so popular that Microsoft, years later, adopted it and is now using it to 

calculate the readability scores of MS Word documents. 

Great scientists and thinkers have identified culture – macrocosmic culture – as 

the common source of all knowledge. In 1937, Albert Einstein said in an essay 

he wrote on moral decay, quoted by Skorton (2018): 

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these 

aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the 



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

55 
 

sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards 

freedom. 

Students of each of these branches can learn a lot by occasionally tasting the 

fruits of each other’s research. After all, the fundamental difference between 

artists and scientists is not in either group’s aversion of the truth but, rather, in 

their preferred approaches to the determination of the truth. Whereas those in 

the arts proceed from the imagination, scientists largely begin their quest by 

taking the empirical route. 

Even these two approaches need not be mutually exclusive. Empiricism, 

creatively employed, can make the work of the arts scholar more predictable 

without necessarily sacrificing its unique flavour. In the same vein, the 

scientist’s fortuitous acquaintance with an artistic research can spur him to 

attain some height of epiphanic imagination. “Every great advance in science,” 

according to Dewey (1929), “has issued from a new audacity of the 

imagination.”  

This view is supported by the father of quantum theory, Max Planck, who 

insists that the ground-breaking scientist must possess “a vivid intuitive 

imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by artistically 

creative imagination.” A good example of this is website technology’s use and 

popularization of the word, “breadcrumb”, a term derived from folklore. As 

explained by smashingmagazine.com (2009),  

A “breadcrumb” (or “breadcrumb trail”) is a type of secondary 

navigation scheme that reveals the user’s location in a website or Web 

application. The term comes from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale in 

which the two title children drop breadcrumbs to form a trail back to their 

home. Just like in the tale, breadcrumbs in real-world applications offer 

users a way to trace the path back to their original landing point. 

Indeed, many scientific discoveries were made serendipitously. A good 

example was the discovery of penicillin by the Scottish scientist, Sir Alexander 

Fleming. In the 1920s, his attention was drawn to some fungi sullying the 

bacteria he was culturing, and ultimately killing them. That observation 

radicalized approaches to the study of microbiology and led to the discovery of 

penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928. According to Adkins, Rock & Morris 

(2018), Fleming’s discovery resulted from “the intersection of science and art”. 

According to them, “most microbiologists would have overlooked” the fungal 

growth “as a commonplace laboratory annoyance”. Why did Fleming not 

overlook it? Adkins et al:                                            

Throughout his scientific career, Fleming entertained himself by fusing 

his painter’s techniques and his microbiology skills in the creation of agar 

art. In his lab, instead of using watercolors on canvas, he would paint 



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

56 
 

with colored microbes on Petri dishes. The microbes would grow from a 

dilute invisible ink to vibrant pigment-expressing biofilms after a few 

days, creating living microbial masterpieces. His creativeness and visual 

acuity is thought to have driven his investigation of contamination he 

might have otherwise thrown out. Fleming later used a more controlled 

microbial painting technique – cross-streaking experiments – to verify the 

lethality of penicillin against a variety of disease-causing bacteria.  

 The above and other examples of cross-disciplinary interfaces indicate that 

some of the academic boundaries we construct may be more imaginary than 

real. As scholars, let us stretch our minds, even if some of the time, beyond the 

boundaries of our departments and faculties. We may be delighted to see, as 

Fleming once said, that “one sometimes finds what one is not looking for”. 

 

References 

Adkins, S., Rock, R., & Morris, J. (2018). The art of microbiology. 

https://blog.oup.com/2018/04/art-of-microbiology/ 

Ajakaye, J. E., Ogunniyi, S. O. (2021). 21st-Century Multidisciplinary 

Collaboration in Research in Library. Library Philosophy and Practice (e-

journal). 6228. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/6228 

Choi, B. C. K. & Pak, A. W. P. (2006). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity 

and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy: 1. 

Definitions, objectives, and evidence of effectiveness. PMID, 29(6):351-64. 

Danielson, K. E. (1987). Readability Formulas: A Necessary Evil?. Reading 

Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 27 (3). Retrieved from 

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol27/iss3/4 

Dewey, J. (1929). The Quest for Certainty, a Study of the Relation of 

Knowledge and Action. Gifford Lectures. London: George Allen & Unwin 

Ltd. 

Donne, John. Meditation XVII. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. 

Flesch, R. (1943). Marks of Readable Style. New York: Bureau of Publications. 

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/breadcrumbs-in-web-design-

examples-and-best-practices/#:~:text=A%20%E2%80%9Cbreadcrumb% 

E2%80%9D%20(or%20%E2%80%9C,trail%20back%20to%20their%20 

home. 

Rouse, J. (2015). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral 

Sciences. 



Global Online Journal of Academic Research (GOJAR), Vol. 2, No. 4 Sep-Oct 2023 

 

 

57 
 

Skorton, D. J. (2018). Branches from the Same Tree Report. National Academy 

of Sciences. https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/about/djs-branches-release-5-

7-18.pdf 

Stoller, A. & Stansel, S. (2021). Why We Need to Teach Students How to 

Think about Disciplines. https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/articles/why-

we-need-to-teach-students-how-to-think-about-disciplines#:~:text=A%20basic 

%20understanding%20of%20the,knowledge%20for%20their%20own%20 

lives. 

Weidlich, W. (1991). Physics and social science — the approach of 

synergetics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/037015 739 

190024G 

Weidlich, W. (2000). Sociodynamics: a Systematic Approach to Mathematical 

Modelling in the Social Sciences. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ 

Physics-and-social-science-%E2%80%94-The-approach-of-Weidlich/79485c1 

b3a3c2a1e77 f0b4db019aeafc3e141733 

 

 

Author Information: Duve Nakolisa is the General Editor, 

Klamidas Books, Abuja, Nigeria. Email: klamidasbooks@gmail.com. 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


